I haven’t recorded Mistle Trush from my garden since April 2014 and it is now a bird, another declining species, that I see rather rarely. Most of my sightings, and hearings, are in upland areas on my travels. And so when I hear a Mistle Trush sing, I have to listen to be sure that that is what it is, and I’m not mixing it up with a slightly odd Song Thrush or a very odd Blackbird.
If you hear Mistle Thrushes all the time then they are pretty easy to recognise, here are three examples, from France:
… from the Netherlands:
… and from the UK:
It’s a simple song lacking some of the melody of the Blackbird and lacking the variety and repetitiveness of the Song Thrush. But I would welcome one adding to the soundscape of my garden.
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As a child hearing this song from home was a given, indeed a neighbour had a huge Ash in their hedge felled because each year a Mistle Thrush sang from its top and woke them early in the morning. ( In winter it also hosted calling Tawny Owls)
Where I recently lived in Harrogate, we had lost the local Mistle Thrushes a few years ago. However hear in Wales it is not that uncommon and in fact I heard 3 singing from the same river valley woodland this morning as I walked our dog. We can also hear one from the house on many but not all days.
The song is not as good as a Blackbird or a Song Thrush but it is certainly loud. In our uplands it is the thrush most often seen close to Ring ousel habitat, indeed I have found nests of both in close proximity. Mistle Thrush in an isolated Rowan, Ring ousel in an undercut bank within 50 m of that tree.
Variety is more than compensated for by clarity and wildness, it didn’t
get the name ” stormcock” for nothing.
Through one of my old ” junior school” windows, a nest could be seen
on a crooked bough of an Ash, reaching over the road, opposite the
Working mens club.
I always look up whenever i pass, fifty odd years on, maybe one day
again.