Bulletin 306 - China #6 - Thrushes, Laughingthrushes and Starlings

I had an 8 day birding to trip in eastern China with a wonderful guide Lin Zhang based in Shanghai. He is perfectly fluent in English. We visited 5 different locales. His website is here. FYI making contact within China by email is a problem as the government blocks some email accounts coming in including gmail.  So I had to contact him using MS Outlook. His email is zhanglinas@hotmail.com.

Thrushes are a worldwide family of medium sized songbirds with many being beautiful singers. The 9" Naumann's Thrush (Turdus naumanni) is brown with a pale eye strip and reddish spots on underparts.

Naumann's Thrush

The darker 9" Dusky Thrush (Turdus eunomus) has brown spots,These 2 species were formerly considered to be the same species.

Dusky Thrush

The last thrush is the 9.5" Chinese Blackbird (Turdus mandarinus).This bird is all black with a yellow bill. The 'blackbird' of the nursery rhymes was formerly a single species all across Eurasia, but has been split into 4 separate species with this being the most easterly one.

Chinese Blackbird

Laughingthrushes are a different family of songbirds despite a similar sounding name. The 12" Masked Laughingthrush (Garrulax perspicillatus) is a plain gray brown bird with a black mask.

Masked Laughingthrush

The 9" Moustached Laughingthrush (Garrulax cineraceus) is brown with gray wings and a white crescent under his eye

Moustached Laughingthrush

The 10" White-browed Laughingthrush (Garrulax sannio) is mostly rufous with a white face.

White-browed Laughingthrush

The starlings and mynahs are an Old World family of birds. I found 2 new species of starlings on the trip. The 9.5" Red-billed Starling (Spodiospar sericeus) is a gray bird with black wings and a red bill and feet.

Red-billed Starling

The 8.5" White-cheeked Starling (Spodiospar cineraceus) is dark gray brown with a prominent white face patch.

White-cheeked Starling

I have put the different bird families in single folders for easy viewing

I have photos of 39 of the 167 species of thrushes

I have photos of 5 of the 135 species of laughingthrushes

I have photos of 7 of the 118 species of starlings and mynahs

Happy birding and photography,


David McDonald
dkmmdpa@gmail.com

photos copyright 2006 - 2018 David McDonald

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