Olive Thrush, This bird is endemic to Southern Africa, mostly around South Africa's eastern and southern coasts
The Olive Thrush or Olyflyster is endemic to Southern Africa and mostly to be found in South Africa's eastern and southern coast extending to Limpopo Province and Lesotho, with fewer in Zimbabwe's eastern highlands. It generally prefers evergreen forest, forest edges, and suburban and rural gardens, in fact it is the 8th most common bird in Cape Town. It also occupies alien Acacia thickets and commercial orchards. It has been recorded as host of the Red-chested cuckoo and mainly eats earthworms, insects, invertebrates and fallen fruit, doing most of its foraging on the ground, flicking through leaf litter in search of prey. The following food items have been recorded in its diet: earthworms,snails,slugs,bivalves,Coleoptera (beetles), Lepidoptera (moths and caterpillars),glow-worms and fruit. Its nest is built by the female in a little over a week and consists of a large, moist bowl made of grass stems, twigs, earth, wet leaves and moss, lined with plant stems, fibres, tendrils and bracken. It is typically in the fork of a tree branch, especially in gardens, anywhere from 3-16 metres above ground. Egg-laying season is basically year-round, peaking from August-December. It lays 2-3 eggs, which are incubated solely by the female for about 14 days, occasionally leaving the nest for up to an hour to forage. The chicks are brooded mainly by the female for the first 2 days, and is also responsible for feeding them with food passed to her by the male for the first few days. Later both parents feed the young, who leave the nest at about 16 days old, when they can barely fly; they remain dependent on their parents for up to 2 months further.
Size: 4752px × 3168px
Location: Kirstenbosch Gardens, Cape Town, South Africa
Photo credit: © Geoffrey Whiting / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: 2, 10, 14, 16, 2-3, 3-16, acacia, adapted, alien, august-december., barely, basically, bird, bowl, bracken, branch, brooded, built, cape, chicks, commercial, common, cuckoo, days, days., depende, earth, earthworms, eats, eggs, evergreen, fallen, feed, feeding, female, fibres, flicking, fly, food, forage., foraging, forest, fork, fruit, gardens, grass, ground, ground. egg-laying, habitat, host, hour, incubated, insects, invertebrates, large, lays, leaf, leave, leaves, leaving, lined, litter, male, man-, metres, moist, moss, nest, occasionally, occupies, olivaceus, olive, orchards, parents, passed, peaking, plant, prey, red-chested, remain, responsible, search, season, solely, stems, supplemented, tendrils, thickets, threatened, thrush, town, tree, turdus, twigs, typically, wet, year-, young
