Mountain Thrush

How to find it

Go to high elevations. A Field Guides group saw about six near Paraiso Quetzal. A January 2024 tour called it fairly common at mid to high elevations early in the trip, while also birding Calle La Paz and Wilson Botanical Gardens. A March 2024 tour met it on its high elevation day at Gema del Bosque. Watch the ground and the big mossy branches, and look at fruit feeders in the Savegre area, though a Costa Rican feeding ban led some lodges to remove feeders, so check beforehand.

How to recognise it

Adults are plain, dull olive-brown all over, with faint pale streaks on the throat. The bill is black and the legs are dark brown. The bird measures about 23 to 26 cm.

There is little colour to go on, so start with the bill. In Costa Rica it is greyer than the Clay-colored Thrush and has a black bill, and it is also greyer and more uniform than the Pale-vented Thrush.

Young birds look like adults but have buff or orange streaks on the head and upperparts. They also have dark spots on the underparts.

Behaviour and diet

It forages on big branches or on the ground, hopping and dashing with pauses. It flips leaf litter looking for small fruits, insects and spiders. Outside the breeding season it forages in flocks.

The nest is a large cup of grass or rootlets, hidden among epiphytes on a branch 3 to 12 m up. The female lays 2 to 3 greenish-blue eggs, with no markings, between March and June.

Where it lives

It prefers tall mountain forest, especially oak forest heavy with epiphytes and moss. It also visits forest edges and pastures with scattered moss-covered trees. Its natural habitat is tropical and subtropical moist montane forest, and it can use heavily degraded former forest too.

In Costa Rica it lives in the mountains. A checklist for the Talamanca Highlands, a cloud forest and páramo area, marks it as common, and a highlands tour lists it as a target species at a bird sanctuary on Cerro de la Muerte at about 2,900 m.

When to see it

Across its range, including the highlands, it moves down in flocks to about 900 m in the wet season. Outside that season it stays higher, mostly from about 1,800 m up to the treeline.

Similar birds

The Clay-colored Thrush (Yigüirro) is the most useful comparison. It has a bright orange bill and a red eye, while the Mountain Thrush is darker overall, has a black bill and is found only at higher elevations. The Sooty Thrush is another highland thrush, common around Cerro de la Muerte and the high Savegre Valley, where it sings from wires and bounces across fields and roads.

Names and lore in Costa Rica

The official Costa Rican Spanish name is Mirlo Montañero, and a local name on one reserve checklist is Yigüirro de Montaña. Other Spanish names used across its range include zorzal serrano, sensontle montañés and zorzal plebeyo. The English name used to be Mountain Robin.

Status and conservation

The AOCR list marks it as a resident (R), and the IUCN lists the species as Least Concern.

Photography tips

Look at fruit feeders where they are still in use, and watch the ground and big mossy branches where it hops and dashes with pauses. Go to high elevations, since that is where it lives.