Photo by Desmond Allen of Internet Bird Collection

Ashy thrush (Zoothera cinerea) is a species of bird in the Turdidae family. It is endemic to the Philippines.

It has ashy-grey head and upper parts, usually shows pale lores and two blackish bars on face, one through eye, one on rear of ear-coverts. It has darker grey wings with two prominent white wing-bars, white underparts with blackish malar, heavy black spotting/streaking on upper breast and large black spots on belly and flanks, white undertail-coverts and very pale legs.

Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and subtropical or tropical moist montanes. A rapid population decline is suspected to be occurring as a result of continuing habitat clearance throughout the species’s range. However, given the species’s apparent tolerance of secondary habitats, declines may be less drastic than currently thought.

Conservation Efforts

In the northern Sierra Madre Natural Park, it is nominally protected because of the national park status of Mts Makiling and Quezon. In Mindoro, funding has been provided for faunal inventories and environmental education initiatives at Puerto Galera.

It is proposed that key sites be designated as formal protected areas; Angat watershed on Luzon and Puerto Galera on Mindoro.