Description:

Medium to large sized with short orange-red uppertail-coverts and tail. Male has bluish head/mantle, white back and orange underparts, obscured by pale fringes in non-breeding/1 st-win. Female has grey-brown upperparts, finely spotted white and barred black, underparts orange-washed and boldly scaled brown.

Distribution:

Common passage migrant and rare summer visitor to western Gilgit-Baltistan. Usually found in wild rocky mountainsides with scattered shrubs and grass cover, boulder-strewn alpine meadows and upland fields with stone walls, up to 3000m.

Behavior:

Forages, often on grassy patches within rocky terrain, by scanning from perch on rock or tree, then dropping or flying down to ground, taking prey, often searching for further food, then returning to perch; occasionally sallies after flying insects. Mainly feeds in invertebrates, specially insects in summers; also some fruit and berries.

Photo Gallery:

Range & Occurrence:

Resident Species

Summer Breeder

Winter Visitor

Passage Migrant

Distribution Map of Rufous-tailed Rock-Thrush in Gilgit-Baltistan (Status: )

Seasonal Occurrence of Rufous-tailed Rock-Thrush

Resources:

Birds of Pakistan: Helm Field Guides (R. Grimmett & T. Inskipp)
The Birds of Pakistan (T. J. Roberts)
Birds of the Indian Subcontinent (C. Inskipp, R. Grimmett & T. Inskipp)
Birds of South Asia: The Ripley Guide (P. Rasmussen & J. Anderton)
Birds of India: Collins Field Guide (N. Arlott)
Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan (S. Ali & S. D. Ripley)
Handbook of the Birds of the World (https://www.hbw.com)
The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World, 6th Edition
iNaturalist BoGB (inaturalist.org/projects/birds-of-gilgit-baltistan)
Birds of Gilgit-Baltistan (http://fb.me/birdsgb)

*Gallery images on this page are shared from flickr.com, and are copyrighted to their respective creators or owners.