The Science of Birds - Random Bird Thursday: A Citrus-themed Species with Runny Mascara

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

In each Random Bird Thursday (RBT) episode, the goal is to highlight a bird species that probably isn't going to get featured in a full-length podcast episode. These are birds we might overlook, even though they certainly deserve some appreciation and attention. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~⚠️ SPOILER ALERT!The featured species in this episode is the Orange-headed Thrush (Geokichla citrina).Sound Citations:Chuenguey Hwang, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3dXua_kD20Support the show

Hello and welcome. This is the Science of Birds. I am your host, Ivan Philipson. The Science of Birds podcast is a lighthearted exploration of bird biology for lifelong learners. It's the best day of the week, and that is Random Bird Thursday. Random Bird Thursday episodes are relatively short and sweet, and in each of these, I spotlight a bird that might not get featured in a full-length episode. It's my attempt to give some much-needed love to one of the 11,000 bird species out there in the world,

species that again I might not cover in a full episode. So, the question everybody wants to know, who are we talking about today? Let's find out by pushing the random bird selector button. Excellent. We have the orange-headed thrush, geokicla citrina. This is one of the true thrushes in the world, and this one is an Asian species that lives in India, Southeast Asia, Eastern China, and parts of Indonesia. Without further ado, let's go ahead and get right into it. In terms of its overall shape, this is a small thrush with a mostly upright posture, and the body shape is pretty typical for thrushes.

So here in North America, you might want to think about an American robber. or maybe a wood thrush if you're over in Europe. And the actual size from beak to tail is about 8 to 9.5 inches or 20.5 to 24 centimeters, roughly. The orange-headed thrush has a bill that is mostly black with a paler base. Sometimes it's described as being slate colored. But that's probably not the first thing you'll notice when you see this bird. Not only does it have an orange head, it has an orange body as well. This is a pretty good looking bird, fairly colorful for a thrush.

The adult males of the nominate subspecies, right, that's the sort of primary subspecies. Adult males have a uniformly orange head and orange underparts, and then their wings and their upper parts are kind of a bluish-gray, dark grayish blue. And then when the bird flies, all subspecies within the orange-headed thrush, all of them have a striking white band that reveals or that's revealed during flight under the wing. Now, females are relatively more brown or olive on their upper parts. They still have an orange head and body, but just the upper parts are less blue and a little more towards greenish brown. Now, the thing that sticks out to me with this species that I think of is not the nominate

subspecies, and we'll talk about subspecies in a moment, but the ones that have a white face with these two broad vertical black stripes. This is a really bold facial pattern. Really cool looking. Looks like some tribal war paint. So the face has a white background with these vertical black stripes. One runs through the eye

and then one is in the or ear area. And I love it that it's been described as like running mascara. The black lines coming down like the bird's been crying because it dropped its iPhone and shattered the screen, so now it's crying, and it's got black streaks streaming down its face.

So anyway, yes, a nice-looking thrush. Also a nice-sounding thrush. And that's not surprising, given that it is a thrush. These birds have beautiful musical sounds that they make. In the case of the orange-headed thrush, it makes a loud, rich musical series of phrases. And then it has some calls, high-pitched flight calls,

and some soft contact. calls as well as more shrill sounds that it uses for alarm as an alarm call. The song has been described as being sort of like that of the common blackbird in Europe, or Eurasian blackbird, but it has a more repetitive structure that is maybe a bit more like a song thrush if you're familiar with the sounds of that bird. And there is variation from one subspecies to the next in terms of their vocalizations. So let's go ahead and listen to one example here. Yeah, pretty nice sound, right?

Now the orange-headed thrush is also a pretty accomplished mimic. It can incorporate the vocalizations of many other species, including birds like the common hawk cuckoo, some bull-bulls, babblers, tailor birds. So not only does it make its own sounds, it will incorporate those into its repertoire as well. Now, you're more likely to hear this bird and hear those nice vocalizations than you are to see it

because the orange-headed thrush is a very shy and secretive bird, which is a shame because it's really cool-looking and we all want to get a look at it. In any case, at least during the breeding season, these birds typically occur in pairs. But when you spook one, when the bird is disturbed, where you or whatever disturbs the bird, it will often sit motionless until you or the other threat passes. Now, of course, you and I know that you pose no threat to the bird,

but unfortunately the thrush doesn't know that. That's one of the tragedies of being a birder, right? That the birds don't know how much we love them. They flee in terror from us, unfortunately, most of the time. Now, that's a good strategy, staying perfectly motionless when you feel threatened. That's what I do. Like when I'm walking down the sidewalk here in Portland, Oregon, and someone is approaching me, and it looks like they're getting a little too close,

they're making eye contact, like maybe they're going to brush elbows with me. I feel threatened, so I step to the side, press myself up against the wall, and remain motionless, desperately hoping that they will. won't notice me. Works every time. Okay, so let's move on to talk about some other things like the family of this bird. As I mentioned, it is a true thrush, therefore it is in the family turdadi. It's in the subfamily of truth rushes. Now, we haven't done a full episode on the family turdody and we will. By God, we will do it. But for now, just know that it's in that family. and again, it's in the genus Geokla, G-E-E-O-K-I-C-H-L-A.

Now, that comes from Greek, and it can be interpreted as meaning ground thrush. And that makes sense because most of the birds in the genus Geokla are considered ground thrushes. Not all of them, like this one, but many of them are ground thrushes. So the closest relative of this species of the orange-headed thrush would be one of those other members of the genus Geokycla and there are about 20 other species. Which one is the closest, absolute, closest relative? I do not know. Now, for the record, this bird was not always in the genus Geokicla.

It used to be placed in the genus Zoothera. So the scientific name was Zoethora citrina. And if you have an older field guide, you might see that name. In any case, the scientific name or the epithet citrina comes from Latin, and that means lemon-colored, so citrine meaning lemon-colored, referring to the color of the bird's head and underparts. Now, I take issue with this because there are three other bird species that have citrina as their specific epithet, the second part of their scientific name, and if you look at those birds,

all of those birds are, in fact, some shade of yellow, not orange. The hooded warbler here in North America, for example, Satofaga-Sitrina is a yellow bird with a very bold yellow face and black head and so on. So yellow makes sense. Citrina. So if citrina means lemon colored as it seems to be in these other three birds, you know, I don't know about you, but the last time I looked, lemons are not orange because the orange-headed thrush is very much orange. So, you know, I'm trying to think there is another fruit that might be a more appropriate here to liken our bird to in terms of what kind of citrus fruit, but I just really, it's not really coming to me.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there. I nitpick because it's fun. So, as I mentioned, there are subspecies within the orange-headed thrush. Now, I will say that scientists recognize that this is a pretty messy, confusing situation at the genetic level in terms of how these subspecies are related and what the evolutionary history is. I don't think all of that has been worked out. It doesn't seem so. there are 11 or maybe 11 to 12 or 13 recognized subspecies

and these have names like citrina, Cyanoda, Inoteda, Meli, Cortoicai, Aramaquela, Andamanensis, Andamanensis, Alogularis, da da da da da da da, chupacabra, Zendaya and so on and so forth. Some of those might be made up by me. Now remember because those are subspecies names, that's the third part of the scientific names. right? So you would have geokicla, citrina,

citrina would be the nominate subspecies. Some researchers think that this species might actually be a complex consisting of not one, but more than one species, because of all the variation that we find in plumage, in vocalizations, in behavior. Because remember that the nominate subspecies just has that plain orange head,

whereas some of the other subspecies have those really cool black markings, the running mascara and the white face and all that. So maybe someday with more research, this species will get sorted out, either will know more about the relationships among the subspecies, or it might even get split into multiple species. As I mentioned, this is an Asian species. It has a pretty widespread range, spanning big parts of Asia,

including most of the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, eastern China, Java, and Bali. Within that broad distribution, this bird likes to hang out in moist, broad-leaved evergreen woodlands, so more or less tropical rainforests, as well as bamboo forests with some medium-density undergrowth. And it likes really shady areas, damp areas. Orange-headed thrushes often hang out in streams or in ravines. And then in the non-breeding season, the only difference is that sometimes these birds will move down to lower altitude. when the temperatures at higher altitudes are too cold.

Now, speaking of moving seasonally, how about migration? Well, the nominate subspecies, right? That one is migratory. It breeds in the Himalayas, and then it spends the winter in southern India and Sri Lanka. But it seems like maybe some of the Chinese populations are also migratory, but there's not a lot of certainty about how that works there for those populations. And then in other populations, like in Southeast Asia,

It appears that those orange-headed thrushes may be resident, or they may just move short distances locally. With respect to conservation, the good news is that this species is currently listed as being in the least concern category. So that's good. However, its population is declining overall, and there is one primary threat besides the usual habitat destruction. and that is the unsustainable trapping for the cage bird trade. This is common in Java and Bali where the birds are captured because they are highly prized for these songbird competitions. There's this whole world of songbird competitions if you didn't know. And in some places, capturing those wild birds has led to local extinctions and that could just get worse and so it's a really major threat.

I mean, for example, in Bali, where the chicks are captured, some research indicates that there's an estimated 160,000 chicks that can be captured just on Bali, the island of Bali, in a single season. That has to be devastating to the local population. Okay, so let's talk about what these birds eat. The orange-headed thrush is omnivorous. It likes to eat a lot of insects, including termites, but it also eats earthworms, leeches, slugs, snails, spiders, and some plant material like berries and fruit.

It's especially fond of figs. And being in the geokicla genus, the genus of the ground thrushes, you won't be surprised, I hope, to hear that this is a ground feeder. The orange-headed thrush rummages around in the leaf litter, flipping leaves over looking for a little invertebrates. It uses its bill also to probe in the earth for things like worst. worms, and it'll also probe into mossy little crevices between rocks. This shy, secretive bird is most active at dawn and dusk. I don't think there's been a lot of research on how these birds breed, so I can't say with 100% confidence that it's monogamous, but seems like it is the birds are typically

seen in pairs during the breeding season. A male will make a really charismatic, interesting display during courtship. To impress a female, he will, will bow his head, spread his wings, move his neck around in a kind of upright and down or up left and down in this interesting pattern while he's singing. And this display is so interesting and crazy in the world of these songbird contests in Indonesia, these postures of the orange-headed thrush are sometimes called a drunken trance. A drunken trance. That's also a good name for my situation on a typical Friday night. Totally blitzed out, have no idea where I am or who I am, Just kidding.

I'm really kidding because a typical Friday night is like most days of the week. I'm probably eating popcorn, watching a movie or reading or just chilling. No trance is involved. Anyway, the female typically would respond to the drunken trance of a male by raising her neck and lowering her wings, and she makes these little chew-choo calls if she's favorable to the situation. The nest that eventually gets made is a shallow cup, and it's constructed of twigs, bark, roots, and moss, maybe with some mud, and the birds will place that one to five meters high in a bush, so about three to 15 feet.

It might be also, it could be in bamboo or a small tree, and mangoes and mango trees and coffee bushes are among the favorite plants for the nest placement. Both mom and dad participate in building that nest, and they participate in taking care of the chicks. Sometimes, apparently, the brood parasite, the pied cuckoo, will parasitize the nests of these orange-headed thrushes. After a couple weeks of incubation, the chicks will hatch, and then they're going to leave the nest another couple weeks later when they fledge. And then somewhere in that process, that's when the birds get scooped up by the bird pirates, the dudes that have these singing competitions, that apparently, at least in some places, is part of the natural life cycle of the orange-headed throches. thrush. Very, very, unfortunately. There's not much info on how long these birds live. There was one kind of shaky little dubious source that said maybe five to eight years, which sounds reasonable

for a thrush. I did try to figure out if there's any data on how long these birds live in captivity, since they seem to be held in captivity quite frequently. And it seems from the cage bird trade in Indonesia that these birds actually live relatively short lifespans in captivity. For many other bird species, as you heard me report many times, birds tend to live longer in captivity. Not to say their life is good in captivity, but they tend to live longer. So these birds in captivity, the orange-headed thrushes, have premature mortality. And it seems that that's because they have a fairly specialized diet. The way they get fed by their captors doesn't quite meet their nutritional needs and they tend to die early. So that's really, again, unfortunate and it's not a great situation. So there's a little

bit of gloom and doom for you. Have I seen this bird? Yes, I have. And as I recall, the subspecies I saw was it did not have the black and white stripes on the face. So I do hope to see that someday. But still, it was cool to see orange-headed thrushes. I saw them on two different trips to Vietnam. And I'm heading to Thailand this November, so I really hope to see them there as well. How about you? Have you ever seen an orange-headed thrush? Hopefully in the wild? If so, let me know. Send me an email. I enjoy reading stories people have about the birds they've seen. So my email address is Ivan at Scienceofbirds.com. And with that, that wraps up our random bird Thursday about the wonderful orange-headed thrush,

Gio-Kicla, Citrina. I'll catch you next time. Cheers.