The orange ground thrush (''Geokichla gurneyi'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

in the family Turdidae.

Taxonomy

The orange ground thrush was described as ''Turdus gurneyi'' by Hartlaub in 1864. It is named after

John Henry Gurney Sr. John Henry Gurney (4 July 1819 – 20 April 1890) was an English banker, amateur ornithologist, and Liberal Party politician of the Gurney family. Life Gurney was the only son of Joseph John Gurney of Earlham Hall, Norwich, Norfolk. At the age ...

, an English banker, politician and ornithologist. There are five subspecies: ''G. g. chuka'' found in central Kenya; ''G. g. raineyi'' found in southeastern Kenya; ''G. g. otomitra'' found in western Angola, southeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, and northern Malawi; ''G. g. gurneyi'' found in eastern South Africa; and ''G. g. disruptans'' found in central Malawi to northeastern South Africa.

Distribution and habitat

Its habitat is montane forests, namely the

afromontane The Afromontane regions are subregions of the Afrotropical realm, one of the Earth's eight biogeographic realms, covering the plant and animal species found in the mountains of Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula. The Afromontane regions ...

of southeastern Africa. The size of its range is estimated at . It is found at elevations of .

Description

Its length is . The male weighs , and the female weighs . The upperparts are olive-brown; some parts have a grey tinge. The flight feathers are blackish-brown. There are two bars on the wing. The throat, breast and flanks are orange. The vent is white. There is an incomplete white eye-ring. The beak is dark. The legs are pink. The female is similar to the male but is less bright. The immature has mottled underparts.

Behaviour

The orange ground thrush is

crepuscular In zoology, a crepuscular animal is one that is active primarily during the twilight period, being matutinal, vespertine, or both. This is distinguished from diurnal and nocturnal behavior, where an animal is active during the hours of daylig ...

. It is sedentary, but makes altitudinal movements in some regions. Its call is ''tsip'' and ''cureek''. Its song is a series of several mellow and melodious notes. It feeds on the ground. Its diet is earthworms, insects,

mollusc Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is esti ...

s and fruits. The breeding season is January to May in Kenya, August to December in Tanzania, October to January in Malawi, and September to December in Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe. In breeding pairs, the female has been observed to consistently weigh more than the male. The nest is a deep cup built of moss, twigs, leaves, roots and ferns. There are 2 to 3 turquoise-blue eggs. The eggs are incubated for 15 days. The fledging period is 18 to 20 days.

Status

Its population size is not known. Its population is declining because of habitat loss. The

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

has listed the species as

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

because it has a large range and its population is not declining quickly enough for it to be considered vulnerable.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q27075625 orange ground thrush Birds of Sub-Saharan Africa orange ground thrush Taxonomy articles created by Polbot