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Wood Thrush
Hylocichla mustelina
Did you know!?!
A female Wood Thrush requires 10-15x more calcium than similar sized mammal, making snail shells a necessary calcium-rich food supplement! These snails are depleted in areas subjected to acid rain causing nutrient deficiencies in the local population of Wood Thrush.
Think a Wood Thrush song sounds haunting? There’s a reason for that! Wood Thrush are able to sing notes in pairs, one in each branch of its voice box simultaneously, making them basically be able to sing a duet with itself!
Extra-pair copulation is common in Wood Thrush with sometimes 40% of the chicks not fathered by the mate.
COSEWIC Status: Threatened
COSSARO Status: Special Concern
Cover photo credit: Mike V.A. Burrell
Description
- Medium sized 20cm long songbird. Their upper parts are rusty-brown, and their underparts are white with black speckles on the breast and sides
- Males and females have a similar appearance. With the exception that juveniles have tawny streaks and spots on their upper parts
- Bold white eye-ring
- Heard deep in the forest singing a haunting “ee-ooh-lay” song
Habitat
- Lives in mature deciduous and mixed forests
- Forests must have moderate undergrowth for shade and abundant leaf litter for insect foraging
- They also look for tall trees to uses as singing perches
Threats
- Urban and rural development causing their forest habitat to become fragmented.
- Over grazing deer eating the underbrush where these bird’s nest.
- Parasitic nesting of brown-headed cowbirds.
- Acid Rain