White-throated Rock Thrush

The White-throated Rock-thrush is a species of bird in the Muscicapidae family. It is found in Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Its natural habitat is temperate forests.

White-throated Rock-thrush - the Little Snail-Cracker

The White-throated Rock-thrush (Monticola gularis) is a small multi-colored bird found in Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam. As with most species of birds, the male is more colorful than the female. The male has bright cobalt blue feathers on the top of wings, the crown and neck area, and black coloring around the eyes, ears, and outer edge of wings. The tail is colored chestnut to grey-brown, with a slight bluish tinge. They have an elongated white spot on the throat and neck area and a short, thick black bill. The under-side of the bird is a bright orange-chestnut color. The female has an olive-brown head and neck area with orange-reddish color on the tail getting darker brown around the edges. Around the eye area and the throat, the feathers are white. The eyes are big and black. The female also has several dark brown barred areas on her abdomen and tail.

The length is about 180 mm (7.08 inches), with a wing length of 95-99 mm (3.7-3.9 inches) and the tail is 74-79 mm (2.9-3.2 inches) long. The White-throated Rock-thrush is said to have a loud, sweet-sounding song. Unlike many other thrushes, they are most often found in dense forest areas with many mature trees. They prefer temperate forest and marshlands or subtropical lowland, moist forest areas. Like many other Rock Thrushes, they build their nest in a hole or rocky crag and they lovingly line them with mud. Typically, the female lays 4-5 blue eggs with small dark spots. Worms, insects, snails, and berries make up the diet of the rock thrush, and they often use a stone as a tool to crack the snail’s shell to extract the snail. The White-throated Rock-thrush is a migratory bird and breeds mainly in China, but also have been known to breed in the other countries, in smaller numbers. The main predators of the Rock Thrush are larger birds such as hawks and owls, and small mammals such as cats. In the last ten years of counts, they have been fairly numerous, so are listed as “Least Concern” on the Endangered Species List.

Picture of the white-throated rock thrush by JJ Harrison, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

The White-throated Rock Thrush is classified as Least Concern. Does not qualify for a more at risk category. Widespread and abundant taxa are included in this category.