ID Bird Song, China. Pale thrush? (1 Viewer)

[xuky.summer]

Qingdao, Shandong province.
The sounds were recorded at an altitude of 800 meters on Jul 30 2022. At first, I thought it was the sound of the Red-billed Leiothrix, but recently there is a sound recognition software with a relatively high accuracy rate that judges 97.6% of the possibility is Pale Thrush, which is currently no breeding record here. and I did not hear a very similar sound on the xeno-canto.org website. We have Grey-backed thrushes and Red-billed Leiothrix breeding here, and the sound doesn't seem to match.

Thank you very much!

 

[MacNara]

Hi Xuky:

We have lots of winter Pale Thrushes where I am, but I only hear the winter call.

However, listening to XenoCanto, my ears agree that your bird sounds a lot like Pale Thrush. It's nothing like Red-billed Leothrix (which have a large breeding colony near my house) in my opinion. Grey-backed Thrushes are a rare & accidental winter visitor near my home, so also I have no direct experience of the summer song. However, the XenoCanto doesn't sound like this either.

Where I am, Pale Thrush (which feed on insects and grubs hidden in leaf litter) skulk a lot from October to February but are out in the open for March to mid-April when they leave.

Of course, if someone had even one photo from that spot, you would be good to go. Is it not possible that it is an early re-migration of a bird that was unsuccessful in breeding?

 

[xuky.summer]

Hi MacNara.
Thank you for your help!
Which sounds of the XenoCanto you're talking about is similar to mine? I've listened to almost all of them and there seems to be a noticeable difference.

 

[MacNara]

Hi MacNara.
Thank you for your help!
Which sounds of the XenoCanto you're talking about is similar to mine? I've listened to almost all of them and there seems to be a noticeable difference.

Hi Xuky,

Your recordings are very quiet, so it's not easy to have a definite opinion.

I was basing my view on the three species you mentioned.

I thought that the Russian summer recordings seemed close to yours. Anyway go to XenoCanto and try these Russian names in the screen grab below (which are all on the first page if you search for Pale Thrush in English). By the way, I advise you to ignore the poster 'AnonTorimi'. He posts any noise he gets and is (I think) almost always unreliable. I know him personally.

One thing is that I don't - and you don't either, I think - know how much variation there is. We have in my area Blue-and-White Flycatcher and Narcissus Flycatcher which breed. Individual birds vary quite a lot, and it's only after a few years that you recognise that these varied songs are all part of one pattern. And it might be the same with Pale Thrush, which, as I have said, doesn't seem to sing where I am, even though there are large numbers in the winter.

 

[xuky.summer]

Thank you!
Maybe it's really because of too much variation