Banasura Laughingthrush

The Banasura laughingthrush, or Banasura chilappan, is a medium-sized songbird 20–23 cm long and 36–52 g, formerly considered a subspecies of the black-chinned laughingthrush. Adults have a black face and throat, white eyebrows, a grey breast, cheeks and back, an ochre belly and an olive back, wings and tail, with a black bill, crimson irises and brownish legs; the sexes are indistinguishable. It is distinguished from the Nilgiri laughingthrush by its grey breast and from the Palani and Ashambu laughingthrushes by its black chin (Wikipedia, general species account).

It is found in shola habitat in a small section of the Western Ghats in south-western Karnataka and northern Kerala. It forages in the shola midstory and lower canopy, hopping among branches, feeding primarily on fruit and insects. The most typical song is a series of three to six loud, nasal whistles, though the song is highly variable, with two-, three-, four- and six-note songs well documented. SoIB 2023 treats it as a Western Ghats endemic and rates it a High conservation priority, with a Very Restricted range of about 2,440 km² and insufficient data on trends (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).