The Mountain Thrush is a large thrush

Thrush (bird)

The thrushes, family Turdidae, are a group of passerine birds that occur worldwide.-Characteristics:Thrushes are plump, soft-plumaged, small to medium-sized birds, inhabiting wooded areas, and often feed on the ground or eat small fruit. The smallest thrush may be the Forest Rock-thrush, at and...

 which is found in Central America

Central America

Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...

. It was formerly known as the Mountain Robin.

Description

The Mountain Thrush resembles other Turdus thrushes in general appearance and habits. It is 23-26 cm long, and weighs 86 g on average. The adult is uniformly dull olive-brown with faint white streaks on the throat. The bill is black and the legs are dark brown. The juvenile resembles the adult, but has but has buff or orange streaks on the head and upperparts, and dark spotting on the underparts. Two superficially similar relatives share this species range. Sooty Thrush

Sooty Thrush

The Sooty Thrush is a large thrush endemic to the highlands of Costa Rica and western Panama. It was formerly known as the Sooty Robin.This is an abundant bird of open areas and oak forest edge normally above 2200 m altitude...

 is blacker with an orange bill, eyering and legs, and Clay-colored Thrush

Clay-colored Thrush

The Clay-colored Thrush is a common Middle American bird of the thrush family . It is the national bird of Costa Rica, where it is well known as the yigüirro. It was formerly known as the Clay-colored Robin....

 is much paler and yellow-billed.

There are three poorly-defined subspecies:

• Nominate T. p. plebejus of the mountains of Costa Rica
  Costa Rica
  Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
  
   and western Panama is described above.
• T. p. differens from the Pacific slope of Mexico to Caribbean
  Caribbean
  The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
  
   Guatemala
  Guatemala
  Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
  
   is more olive above, and more olive brown and less grey below
• T. p. rafaelensi of the highlands from Honduras
  Honduras
  Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
  
   to northwestern Nicaragua
  Nicaragua
  Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
  
   is intermediate between the northern and southern subspecies above, and is often merged with differens.

Distribution and habitat

This is a bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

 of tall mountain forests and adjacent more open areas and woodland edge which breeds in highlands from southern Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 to western Panama

Panama

Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...

. Its preference is for oak

Oak

An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...

 with many epiphyte

Epiphyte

An epiphyte is a plant that grows upon another plant non-parasitically or sometimes upon some other object , derives its moisture and nutrients from the air and rain and sometimes from debris accumulating around it, and is found in the temperate zone and in the...

s and moss

Moss

Mosses are small, soft plants that are typically 1–10 cm tall, though some species are much larger. They commonly grow close together in clumps or mats in damp or shady locations. They do not have flowers or seeds, and their simple leaves cover the thin wiry stems...

es, normally from 1800 m altitude to the timberline. It descends in flocks as low as 900 m in the wet season.

Behaviour

The Mountain Thrush behaves like other thrushes. It forages on large branches or on the ground, in flocks when not breeding, progressing in hops and dashes with frequent stops. It turns leaf litter seeking small fruits, insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s and spider

Spider

Spiders are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other groups of organisms...

s.

Breeding

It builds a grass or rootlet-lined large cup nest, concealed amongst epiphytes, 3–12 m above the ground on a tree branch. The female lays 2–3 unmarked greenish-blue eggs between March and June. The breeding season song is an unthrushlike mechanical monotone chip chip cher chip chip cher cher, and the call is a high seee or whip.