The Olive Thrush is, in its range, one of the most common members of the 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...

 family (Turdidae). It occurs in east African highlands from Eritrea

Eritrea

Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...

 and Ethiopia

Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...

 in north to the Cape of Good Hope

Cape of Good Hope

The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...

 in south. It is a bird of forest and woodland, but has - locally - adapted to parks and large gardens in suburban areas.

It can reach a length of 24 cm and a mass of at least 101 grams. The tail and the upperparts are coloured dull olive brown. The belly is white and the rest of the underparts have an orange hue. The throat is speckled with white spots. It can be found in evergreen forests, parks, and gardens. Its diet consists of earthworm

Earthworm

Earthworm is the common name for the largest members of Oligochaeta in the phylum Annelida. In classical systems they were placed in the order Opisthopora, on the basis of the male pores opening posterior to the female pores, even though the internal male segments are anterior to the female...

s, 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, snail

Snail

Snail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...

s, fruit

Fruit

In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

s, and spiders.

In southern Africa alone, there are five subspecies

Subspecies

Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...

 which differ mainly in the relative amounts of white, orange and brown on the underparts: T. o. swynnertoni, T. o. transvaalensis, T. o. olivaceus, T. o. pondonensis, and T. o. culminans. The Karoo Thrush

Karoo Thrush

The Karoo Thrush is a member of the thrush family in Africa. It has traditionally been considered a subspecies of the Olive Thrush , but is increasingly treated as a separate species. This medium-sized bird has a length of about 24 cm...

 (Turdus smithi), the Somali Thrush

Somali Thrush

The Somali Thrush , also known as the Somali Blackbird, is a songbird species in the family Turdidae. It is endemic to Somalia.It has a black head and breast, yellow bill, brown back and wings and a grey belly with red sides....

 (Turdus ludoviciae) and the Taita Thrush

Taita Thrush

The Taita Thrush , also known as Taita Olive Thrush or Heller's Ground Thrush, is a critically endangered bird from the family of thrushes , endemic to the Taita Hills in Kenya.-Description:...

 (Turdus helleri) are variously included as subspecies

Subspecies

Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...

 of the Olive Thrush or considered separate species, of which the last is critically endangered

Critically endangered

Version 2010.3 of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species identified 3744 Critically Endangered species, subspecies and varieties, stocks and subpopulations.Critically Endangered by kingdom:*1993 Animalia*2 Fungi*1745 Plantae*4 Protista-References:...

. Additionally, the taxa from the northern part of its range are sometimes regarded as one (Northern Olive Thrush or Mountain Thrush, T. abyssinicus) or several separate species (Abyssinian Thrush

Abyssinian Thrush

The Abyssinian Thrush or African Mountain Thrush is a passerine bird in the Turdidae family. It has recently been split from the Olive Thrush , Usambara Thrush and Taita Thrush on genetic differences. Their ranges do not overlap. The southern and northern populations may be distinct species...

, T. abyssinicus, Oldean's Thrush, T. oldeani and Roehl's/Usambara Thrush, T. roehli).

The female builds a cup nest, typically 2 to 9 m above the ground in a tree or hedge. The 1–3 (usually 2) eggs are incubated solely by the female for 14–15 days to hatching, and the chicks fledge in another 16 days.

The male's song is a mix of fluted, whistled and trilled phrases, which varies geographically. It occasionally mimics other birds.