African Wildlife Environment Issue 75 FINAL

A juvenile Kurrichane Thrush

Breeding Usually breed after the first rains in the summer rainfall area. Breeding time is spring to mid-summer peaking around October. The female builds a bulky cup-shaped nest around 150mm in diameter, 80 to 90mm deep with a cup of 40 to 50mm in diameter on top of thick foliage or in the fork of a tree from 3 to 6 m up. In forests the Olive Thrush uses moss and can be closer to the ground around 2 to 4 m. This building activity can be completed in two days. Male and female often roost together for three to six days after the nest is completed and egg-laying starts. Nests are sometimes placed in gutters or pot

may sometimes be plastered with mud. Old nests are occasionally reused. The female incubates the two to four greenish- blue reddish-brown blotched eggs alone for 14 days and the young birds fledge in 16 days after that. Juveniles have spotted underparts. The young are fed by both parents. Thrush young are preyed on by Vervet monkeys, baboons and Thick-tailed Bushbabies, as well as snakes like the Boomslang. Adults are recorded as being prey for Booted Eagles in the Mountain Zebra National Park. All three species are parasitised by the Red-chested Cuckoo which lays unmatching eggs. Conservation status

Not threatened and all are found in protected areas.

Olive Thrush (Photograph: Albert Froneman)

plants in homesteads, and even nesting in a rain gauge has been recorded! The nest is lined with fine rootlets and camouflaged with twigs and fibres and

John Wesson jwesson@wessanorth.co.za

41 | African Wildlife & Environment | Issue 75 (2020)