Thrush headache

Hi all,

I always thought that the Japanese Thrush male adult was ONLY like this (and therefore always thought that its illustration in the Robson had been a little bit botched !) :

with a strong contrast head - mantle/wings

… until I saw this stunning bird 2 days ago in the Botanical Garden :

I told myself : woaah, so nice bird ! An adult male, exactly like the illustration of the Robson ! Ok, but all my contrasted head - mantle males of before, how should I call them now ?

- In the Robson (edition 2006), there's absolutely nothing about this pattern (both plates and texts). Very strange.

- In the Brazil (thanks Florian !), there’s an illustration of this kind of plumage with the legend: 1st winter male.

Not convinced at all, I search on Internet and found something very interesting on OrientalBirdImages, especially the pics of Jonathan Martinez, a French birder who’s living in China, in the Hunan province. He took pics at mid-June 2010 of juveniles, females and males (http://orientalbirdimages.org/search.php?Bird_ID=2464&Bird_Image_ID=44540&Bird_Family_ID=&p=6), in a Japanese Thrushes breeding population. Today, I send him an email to have confirmation that those males were adults and even breeding ones.

He answered this (sorry, in french, please use Google traduction) :
« Pour tout t'avouer, ces thrushes m'ont également laissé perplexe. J'ai une bonne population nicheuse dans le Hunan en Chine et je n'ai pas encore vu un seul mâle nicheur qui ait un pattern classique comme décrit dans de nombreux guides, sans fort contraste manteau-tête, tout les mâles que j'ai pu observer sont identiques à ceux de mes photos. J'en viens à me demander si les oiseaux qui nichent en Chine ne serait pas différents de ceux qui nichent au Japon, j'ai trouvé très peu de choses dans la littérature mais n'ai pas eu encore trop le temps d'approfondir, dans tout les cas il y a quelque chose d'étrange, et je n'ai rien trouvé qui mentionne que la population qui niche dans le centre de la Chine soit une sous-espèce différente. A mon avis il y a matière à creuser».

He wrote, I resume, that among the 10 pairs he have observed over there, he have never seen males without strong contrast head-mantle like described in the majority of the identification guides. All its pics definitely show adults breeding males !

So, different races of Japanese Thrush ? In my humble opinion, the very black males could come from North-Est Asia (Japan, Korea...). Have a look at the blogs of the Land of the Rising Sun birders.

Now, I want to show you a mysterious bird that I have observed last Tuesday in the Botanical Garden. That's a tricky one isn't it ? Look this grey-blue mantle/wings, the contrast head-mantle, the black breast, the bluish spots on the flanks... Why not a 1st winter male Japanese Thrush ?
Thoughts/suggestions/confirmation welcome !