Japanese Thrush

Japanese Thrush (Turdus cardis) is a medium thrush whose male has a black head and upperparts with a white belly marked by dark spots, while females are brown. Body shape, bill structure, plumage pattern and voice provide the strongest field characters. Age, sex and season may alter its appearance, so identification should combine several features and careful direct field comparisons with similar species in the same habitat (Wikipedia, general species account).

It breeds in Japanese and central Chinese forest, arriving in East Asia during spring, feeds on ground invertebrates and fruit and migrates to southern China and northern Indochina for winter. Its movements and social behaviour vary through the year, with breeding birds generally more dispersed and non-breeding birds gathering where food is concentrated. The Korean vertebrate catalogue used for this guide records the species in South Korea (Wikipedia, general species account; Wildlife of Korea occurrence records).