Leucistic China Thrushes

This morning, Darren Yeo, released his pair of male and female leucistic china thrushes into his breeding aviary.  They took to each other immediately.  As can be seen in the video, they started plucking leaves that they carried about.  This may be part of the mating ritual.  There was the usual nesting material but the thrushes seemed to ignore it in preference for the fresh leaves on the bush.

Darren had also placed a basket in the bush as the china thrushes are known to build cup shaped nests.  However, the birds seem to be more curious about the open top nest-box that Darren installed for his shamas. It will be interesting to see if they prefer the box to the usual cup nest.