Redwing
The redwing is a bird in the thrush family, Turdidae, native to Europe and the Palearctic, slightly smaller than the related song thrush.
Taxonomy and systematics
This species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae under its current scientific name.The English name derives from the bird's red underwing. It is not closely related to the red-winged blackbird, a North American species sometimes nicknamed "redwing", which is an icterid, not a thrush. The binomial name derives from the Latin words turdus, "thrush", and ile "flank".
About 65 species of medium to large thrushes are in the genus Turdus, characterised by rounded heads, longish, pointed wings, and usually melodious songs. Although two European thrushes, the song thrush and mistle thrush, are early offshoots from the Eurasian lineage of Turdus thrushes after they spread north from Africa, the redwing is descended from ancestors that had colonised the Caribbean islands from Africa and subsequently reached Europe from there.
The redwing has two subspecies:
- Turdus iliacus iliacus, the nominate subspecies described by Linnaeus, which breeds in mainland Eurasia.
- Turdus iliacus coburni described by Richard Bowdler Sharpe in 1901, which breeds in Iceland and the Faroe Islands and winters from western Scotland and Ireland south to northern Spain. It is darker overall, and marginally larger than the nominate form.
Description
Song
The male has a varied short song, and a whistling flight call. Redwings show a distinct dialectic variation in song, having a considerable similarity in song patterns among birds within a local population.The Redwing song consists of a number of introductory elements of descending or ascending frequency. These elements may be of pure tonal quality, or of a more harsh quality. After the introductory elements, a fast and more complex song pattern often follows. It is the introductory elements which show a geographic variation. The boundaries of any given dialect may vary but in a rural and forested environment in Norway the average size of these dialect areas is around 41.5 km2.
Distribution and habitat
The redwing thrush breeds in northern regions of Europe and the Palearctic, from Iceland south to northernmost Scotland, and east through Scandinavia, the Baltic States, northern Poland and Belarus, and through most of Russia to about 165°E in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. In recent years it has expanded its range slightly, both in eastern Europe where it now breeds south into northern Ukraine, and in southern Greenland, where the Qaqortoq area was colonised in 1990–1991.It is often replaced by the related ring ouzel in areas of higher altitude.
The thrush is migratory, wintering in western, central and southern Europe, north-west Africa, and south-west Asia east to northern Iran. Birds in some parts of the west of the breeding range may be resident, not migrating at all, while those in the far east of the range migrate at least 6,500–7,000 km to reach their wintering grounds.
There are multiple records of vagrants from the north-east coast of North America, as well as two sightings on the north-west coast.
Behaviour and ecology
While migrating and wintering, redwing thrushes often form a loose flock. The size of the flock varies between 10 and at least 200 birds. They often feed together with fieldfares, common blackbirds and starlings. Sometimes, they will also feed alongside mistle thrushes, song thrushes, and ring ouzels. Unlike the song thrush, the more nomadic redwing does not tend to return regularly to the same wintering areas.Migration occurs between autumn and early winter, and the birds often move at night. Oftentimes, they may make a "Tseep" contact call that can carry a long distance.