Thrush

Thrush, common name applied to any of a large family of widely distributed passerine birds. There are two major groups, the true thrushes (to which the American robin belongs) and the chat thrushes (to which the European robin belongs). The chat thrushes are confined to Eurasia, except for the northern wheatear, which has colonized Alaska and northern Canada. The true thrushes are found on every continent and many islands, although there is only one native species in Australia.

The largest genus of true thrushes, with about 66 species, is found in both temperate and tropical areas around the world; oddly, only one species, the American robin, inhabits North America. A strictly American genus includes seven tropical and four temperate species, among the finest avian songsters, the most famous of which is the hermit thrush. It nests in coniferous habitats over most of the United States and Canada. It resembles the other three North American members of the genus in being brown above and buffy-white, heavily spotted with dark gray, below, but is distinguished by its contrastingly rufous tail. An equally fine singer is the wood thrush, a more heavy-bodied bird of eastern deciduous forests.

In western Europe, the ecological equivalent of the American robin is the Eurasian blackbird, in which the male is all black with a yellow bill and the female is dull brown. It forages in parks and gardens much as the robin does in the United States, and its song and calls are quite similar.

The name thrush is often applied to birds of different families reminiscent of thrushes in coloration, voice, or ecological niche. Among such birds are the ant thrushes, the shrike thrushes, and the North American waterthrushes.

Scientific classification: Thrushes make up the family Turdidae of the order Passeriformes. The northern wheatear is classified as Oenanthe oenanthe, the American robin as Turdus migratorius, and the hermit thrush as Catharus guttatus. The wood thrush is classified as Hylocichla mustelina, and the Eurasian blackbird as Turdus merula.

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