Chestnut-bellied Rock-Thrush Monticola rufiventris Scientific name definitions

21–23 cm; 48–61 g. Male has grey-blue crown and upperparts, with blackish lores and ear-coverts continuing onto shoulders and merging with deep bluish-black throat, sharply divided from deep chestnut underside ; in non-breeding plumage, mantle and scapulars show whitish scaling, whitish wingbar. Female is dull grey-brown above, scalloped slate-grey and buffy-white below , with whitish-buff eyering, mesial stripe and prominent post-auricular patch. Juvenile is like female, but spotted and barred buffish above, wings edged buffish.

N Pakistan (Murree Hills) E in Himalayas to NE India (including S Assam hills), Myanmar, SW & SE China (S from S Shaanxi and Zhejiang), NW Thailand (Doi Inthanon) and N Indochina; non-breeding S to N Thailand.

Mainly insects, such as craneflies, and including large ones such as cicadas (which are battered on branch before swallowing); also molluscs and small lizards, sometimes berries. Forages mainly on ground , but often perches high in bare trees, and makes occasional aerial sallies.

Song  , by male from top of tall tree or (when often more continuous) in short flight between trees, reminiscent of M. cinclorhyncha song but thinner and more subdued yet more varied, a series of sweet, short, sibilant but subdued undulating warbles, starting hesitantly with some level notes and becoming a rapid tinkling flurry, sometimes with last note slightly offset, “teetatewleedee-tweet tew” or “twew-twi-er tre-twi teedle-desh”, lasting only 1·5 seconds and repeated at intervals; also includes piercing, slightly downslurred “police-whistle” note followed by quick upslurred “fweeeur-fweet!” Subsong reminiscent of quiet version of Sturnus starling song, a sustained bubbling and warbling interspersed with wheezy notes, babbling calls and grating notes. Calls include deep, loud, rattling squirrel-like “chhrrr” in alarm, a strange downslurred, twangy buzzing, a dry twitter, a sharp querulous “quach” and thin shrill “tick”.