Forty Fousand Fevvers on....

[rutineli]

I have a beautiful pair of speckle-breasted thrushes in my garden but I cannot tell if they are a couple ,(as in "an item") or two birds of the same sex which happen to share a non-aggressive nature. They seem to look identical to me, so can anybody tell me how to tell the difference between males and females of that ilk? -rutineli

[Bellringer]

Ask another Thrush.

[Cetti]

Sadly for ID purposes the Song and the Mistle Thrush are identical, rutineli. Brown, dark brown spots with a buff coloured chest.

They are gorgeous, aren't they - and like you say timid for their size? Our blackbird only has to say''boo!' and the poor thrush dives for cover.

Are they nesting in your garden, or perhaps just house hunting?

[rutineli]

Cetti
How nice to meet a normal sensible person. I think the pair are househunting. Is the Mistle thrush a male or a female, which differentiation was the purpose of my enquiry?
Many thanks for your interest - rutineli

[Cetti]

From your description the pair in your garden were definitely Song Thrushes. Both male and female are identical.

Mistle Thrushes are larger and more upright and although brown, much paler.Again male and female are identical. These thrushes have a haughty appearance and appear to be looking down their noses at everyone!

[rutineli]

They certainly get around at an amazing rate of knots on foot. They can outrun almost everything in the garden. They have a mid brown back and wings a lovely beige coloured breast which is covered with multiple darker brown flecks that seem to be considerably longer vertically than horizontally. - rutineli

[burnhal]

At this time of year they are almost certainly a pair- and you can count yourself lucky if a pair of song thrushes set up home in your garden! They are getting progressively rarer- I havent seen one in my garden in months!

[WendyS]

I'm glad you asked that question because I also have two visiting thrushes to our garden and wonder whether they are a pair. They seem to spend the same amount of time foraging and usually always fly off within seconds of each other in the same direction so I suspect they probably are. During the winter months we have often had a solitary thrush appear, so I guess these two have mated up.. I have watched them closely through my binnoculars and can't spot any visible difference between them, so sadly sexing them has proved impossible. Our visitors are beautiful birds, but quite timid and often seem to be bullied off by the blackbirds who seem to have a much more aggressive nature..

[rutineli]

WendyS your experience is exaqctly the same as mine. We are lucky her as we also get pheasants of both sexes which we were hopiung would make our garden their home but no luck so far. The males are spectacular and the females seem to travel in groups, for safety I suppose.

we often have up to ten or twelve blackbirds of both sexes but there always seems to be a dominant male who bullies the others but the thrushes outrun him every time.

It beats daytime TV every time.