A popular European garden bird, the Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos ) landed on board off the Mediterranean coast of Africa. This insectivorous bird was probably hopping across the Mediterranean like the birds that have been featured in the previous posts. Like the Lark in my previous post this bird too is in rapid decline especially in the UK
The bird is a great imitator of calls, and can imitate up to 100 calls many of which it learns either from its mother or neighborhood birds. There have been instances of the bird even repeating telephone rings.
The Song Thrush is occasionally a host of parasitic cuckoos, but this is very rare because the thrush recognizes the cuckoo's eggs. The introduced birds in New Zealand, where the cuckoo does not occur, have, over the past 135 years, have still retained the ability to recognise and reject cuckoos eggs.
Photodetails : The photographs were clicked at noon and hence they lack the warm tones of the morning or evening sun. The noon sun also casts some unwanted shadows, especially on the birds face in the second photograph. The bird did not stay until evening and hence probably missed a chance to click some wonderful photographs.
300mm, f/5.6, 1/320sec, ISO 100
