Nilagiri: In a first in Odisha, pied thrush, a species of migratory bird, has been spotted in the Panchalingeswar reserve forest under this block of Balasore district. Noted ornithologist and Kuldiha guide Manoranjan Das has identified both the male and female birds of the species. With this, another foreign bird has been added to the list of Kuldiha Sanctuary. The scientific name of pied thrush is Geokichla wardii and it is placed in the thrush family. Males of this species grow up to 22 cm and are conspicuously coloured black and white.
Mostly black on the upper parts, they have a long white supercilium, and white tips to the wing coverts, tertials, rump and tail. The underparts are white with black flank spots on the bill and the legs are yellow. Females and young birds have the same basic pattern, but the black is replaced by dark brown, and the white by light brown. The markings on the underside are scalier. The bill is not as strongly curved. These birds are found in great numbers in the central Himalayan forests of India and Nepal and in the hill forests of southern India and Sri Lanka during winter.
Like many other thrushes, they forage on leaf litter below forest undergrowth and fly into trees when disturbed, and sit still making them difficult to locate.
