Habitat
Mainly moist forests, especially wet sclerophyll forests and rainforests, often in dense vegetation in moist gullies. Occasionally dry sclerophyll forests and woodlands, and shrublands, sometimes in pine plantations, gardens and thickets of woody weeds. From 700 - 1,050 m.
Food
Earthworms, insects, molluscs and fallen fruit.
Voice
Mostly silent. A thin 'seep' in contact and at the nest. A high-pitched, staccato 'chi-lit' in alarm. Song, by males, either a two prolonged, descending whistles 'wheeer-dooo' or the same notes broken up and extended into a series of far-carrying whistled trills, often upslurred.
Bassian Thrush (Zoothera lunulata) [XC174176]
by John Holley from Royal National Park (near Wollongong), New South Wales, Australia (song)
Bassian Thrush (Zoothera lunulata) [XC429435]
by Phil Gregory from Mount Glorious, Moreton Bay Regional, Queensland, Australia (song)
Breeding Season (Guide)
July - December, but varying according to subspecies.
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Nest
A rounded cup, composed of bark strips, leaves and grasses, decorated on the outside with green moss and lined with rootlets, in the fork of a tree, or on a stump.
Eggs (Guide)
2 - 3; stone to pale green, freckled with red-brown; oval; about 35 x 23 mm. Incubation: about 14 - 15 days; by female.
Young
Altricial, nidicolous. Fledge in about 16 days.
Formerly treated as a subspecies of Scaly Thrush (Zoothera dauma). Isolated subspecies cuneata structurally rather distinct, and speculated as representing a different species. Described subspecies macrorhyncha (from Tasmania) synonymized with nominate.
The following 3 subspecies are recognised:
cuneata (De Vis, 1889) - North-eastern Australia (north-eastern Queensland).
lunulata (Latham, 1801) - South-eastern Australia, Tasmania, and islands in Bass Strait (King I, Flinders I).
halmaturina (Campbell, AG, 1906) - South-eastern South Australia, in Mt Lofty Range, Telowie Gorge Conservation Park and Wittaburra Forest, and on Kangaroo I.
Similar Species
Russet-tailed Thrush (Zoothera heinei) and Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos) whiich is smaller, has plain brown and unscaled upperparts and pale underbelly boldly spotted with black. Russet-tailed Thrush (Zoothera heinei) and Bassian Thrush (Zoothera lunulata) were formerly considered one species (dauma).
Compare Images
The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Pizzey, G., and Knight, E., 1997, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 19691 5
Field Guide to Australian Birds Morecombe, M., 2000, Steve Parish Publishing Pty Ltd. ISBN 1 876282 10 X
Field Guide to the Birds of Australia Simpson, K., and Day, N., 1999, 6th Edition, Viking ISBN 0 670 87918 5
Reader's Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds 1988, 2nd Edition, Reader's Digest ISBN 0 949819 99 9
What Bird is That? 1984, Revised Edition, Angus & Robertson, Sydney ISBN 0 207 14846 5
Handbook of Australian, New Zealand & Antarctic Birds 1990 - , Oxford University Press, Melbourne ISBN 0 19 553244 9
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