Just by a hedge, I saw something moving. I waited for the bird and saw that it was a thrush, an African thrush. It is a often shy thrush that grows up to 21-23 cm long, thus almost identical to our European Song thrush. It is distributed in a belt across Africa, from Senegal to the west, to Ethiopia to the east - with a couple of incursions southwards (on either side of the Congo rainforest). It occurs in several different biotopes but likes the prensence of water. It lives on seeds, fruits (e.g. figs) and berries and even has been seen to take small fish in shallow water. One specialty is that, like its relative the Song thrush, it is able to crack snails against a stone. It then uses a favorite stone as an "anvil" as it crushes the shell of the snail before pulling out the soft body ...