Himalayan Whistling Thrush

Himalayan Whistling Thrush or the Blue Whistling Thrush, also known as the Whistling schoolboy! The bird fans its tail out when it is about to fly, and is known as Kalchure in Nepali.

The Latin name is Myiophoneus caeruleus. According to Allen Octavian Hume in 'The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds':

"Subfamily BRACHYPTERYGINAE

Myiophoneus temmincki, (Vigors). The Himalayan Whistling Thrush

The Himalayan Whistling-Thrush breeds throughout the Himalayas from Assam to Afghanistan, in shady ravines and wooded glens, as a rule, from an elevation of 2000 to 5000 feet, but, at times, especially far into the interior of the hills, up to even 10,000 feet. It lays during the last week of April, May, and June. The number of eggs varies from three to five.

The nest is almost invariably placed in the closest proximity to some mountain-stream, on the rocks and boulders of which the male so loves to warble; sometimes on a mossy bank; sometimes in some rocky crevice hidden amongst drooping maiden-hair; sometimes on some stream-encircled slab, exposed to view from all sides, and not unfrequently curtained in by the babbling waters of some little waterfall behind which it has been constructed. The nest is always admirably adapted to surrounding conditions. Safety is always sought either in inaccessibility or concealment. Built on a rock in the midst of a roaring torrent, not the smallest attempt at concealment is made; the nest lies open to the gaze of every living thing, and the materials are not even so chosen as to harmonize with the colour of the site. But if an easily accessible sloping mossy bank, ever bejewelled with the spray of some little cascade, be the spot selected, the nest is so worked into and coated with moss as to be absolutely invisible if looked at from below, and the place is usually so chosen that it cannot well be looked at, at all closely, from above.

Captain Unwin sent me an unusually beautiful specimen of the nest of this species, taken early in May in the Agrore Valley - a massive and perfect cup, with a cavity of 5 inches in diameter and 3 inches deep; the sides fully 2 inches thick; an almost solid mass of fine roots (the finest towards the interior) externally intermingled with moss, so as to form, to all appearance, an integral portion of the mossy bank on which it was placed. In the bottom of the nest were interwoven a number of dead leaves, and the whole interior was thinly lined with very fine grass-roots and moss. In this case the nest had been placed on a tiny natural platform and was a complete cup; but in another nest, also sent by Captain Unwin, the cup, having been placed on the slope of a bank, wanted (and this is the more common type) the inner one-third altogether, the place of which was supplied by the bank-moss in situ. In this case, although the cavity was only of the same size as that above described, the outer face of the nest was fully 6 inches high, and the wall of the nest between 3 and 3½ inches thick. The former contained three much incubated, the latter four nearly fresh eggs.

A nest from Darjeeling which was taken on the 28th July, at an elevation of about 3500 feet, from under a rock which partly overhung a stream, and contained two fresh eggs, was composed in almost equal proportions of fine moss-roots and dead leaves with scarcely a trace of moss. In this case the nest was entirely concealed from view, and no necessity, therefore, existed for coating it externally with green moss to prevent its attracting attention.

Writing from Dhurmsalla, Captain Cock informed me that he had obtained several nests in May in and about the neighboring streams, up to an elevation of some 5000 feet. From Murree, Colonel C. H. T. Marshall remarks: "Several nests found in June, near running streams, about 4000 feet up."

Dr. Stoliczka tells us that "it breeds at Chini and Sungnum at an elevation of between 9000 and 11,000 feet."

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