Malabar Whistling Thrush

The Malabar whistling thrush is a large thrush 25–30 cm long and 101–130 g. The male has a blackish upper body with shiny metallic blue patches on the forehead and shoulders and glossy royal-blue scaling on the back, scapulars and mid-breast to belly, with a black bill and legs; juveniles are black with a glossy blue shoulder patch and wing edgings. It has been called the whistling schoolboy for its very human-sounding whistling calls at dawn (Wikipedia, general species account).

It is resident all along the Western Ghats south of the Surat Dangs, along the Satpura range to Chhattisgarh, in north-western Odisha (Surguja and Simlipal) and locally in the Eastern Ghats. It forages along rocky hill streams and rivers in forest, secondary growth and plantations, from the foothills up to 2,200 m, reaching the plains in the rainy season. Populations are not migratory but disperse widely in winter, and the male sings a varied, melodious whistling song from trees in summer. It has occasionally been recorded eating small snakes and rarely longer ones such as the rat snake. SoIB 2023 treats it as endemic to mainland India and rates it a Moderate conservation priority, with a Moderate range of about 146,000 km² and a decline of about 53% over the long term (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).