Birdpass
English
Redwing

Redwing

Turdus iliacus

Identify the Redwing by sound or photo and log your sightings with Birdpass.

  • Download on the App Store
  • Get it on Google Play

The Redwing is a small, northern thrush with rusty-red flanks and underwings and a bold creamy supercilium. It breeds in northern forests and scrub from Iceland across northern Europe and Siberia and winters in western, central and southern Europe, North Africa and south-west Asia. It migrates at night, and its thin “seep” calls are a classic autumn sound. It has declined in parts of its range.

Did you know?

  • It migrates at night, giving a thin “tseep” call.
  • It is not related to the American Red-winged Blackbird.

Voice

Song
Call
Flight call
Alarm call

About the species

Identification

A small thrush with a brown back and pale underparts with dark streaks. The flanks and underwing coverts are clearly rusty red, and the head has a strong white supercilium; these features separate it from other thrushes, such as Song Thrush.

Family

Turdidae

Size

Medium (thrush)

Colours

brown, white, red, black

About the habitat

Damp birch, spruce and mixed woodland, forest edges, clearings, willow scrub and boggy thickets; in winter fields, hedges, parks and orchards with berries.

Diet

Insects and other invertebrates, especially earthworms, in spring and summer; berries such as rowan and hawthorn in autumn and winter.

Behaviour

A ground-feeding thrush that probes soil and leaf litter and gathers in loose flocks outside the breeding season, often with Fieldfares. Males sing short, varied phrases with regional dialects. It nests low in trees or shrubs. It is nomadic in winter, not returning to the same sites each year.

Sources

Photo: Andreas Trepte, CC BY-SA 2.5 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Redwing Turdus iliacus.jpg

Sound: Benoît Van Hecke, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Turdus_iliacus_-_Redwing_XC538936.mp3

Sound: Sonothèque ADVL, XC919456, CC0 1.0 https://xeno-canto.org/919456

Sound: Joost van Bruggen, XC432934, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://xeno-canto.org/432934

Sound: Olivier Grimm, XC561040, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://xeno-canto.org/561040

Text: Wikipedia (English) + FinBIF species descriptions, CC BY-SA 4.0; FinBIF: CC BY 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redwing

See also