Editing Song thrush (section)

===Classification===
[[File:Turdus philomelos -New Zealand -nest-8 (4).jpg|right|thumb|A parent feeding chicks in their nest in a [[New Zealand]] garden|alt=A brown spotted bird standing on the rim of a nest with food for four chicks seen with open gapes]]
A molecular study indicated that the song thrush's closest relatives are the similarly plumaged [[mistle thrush]] (''T. viscivorus'') and [[Chinese thrush]] (''T. mupinensis''); these three species are early offshoots from the Eurasian lineage of ''Turdus'' thrushes after they spread north from Africa. They are less closely related to other European thrush species such as the [[Common blackbird|blackbird]] (''T. merula'') which are descended from ancestors that had colonised the [[Canary islands]] from Africa and subsequently reached Europe from there.<ref name="Voelker et al 2007" /><ref name= reilly>{{cite book | last1 = Reilly | first1 = John | title = The Ascent of Birds| series = Pelagic Monographs | publisher = Pelagic | year = 2018| location = Exeter | pages = 221–225 | isbn =  978-1-78427-169-5}}</ref>

The song thrush has four [[subspecies]],<ref name="IOC">{{cite web | title=Thrushes – IOC World Bird List | website=IOC World Bird List – Version 14.2 | date=2024-08-17 | url=https://www.worldbirdnames.org/new/bow/thrushes/ | access-date=2025-01-26}}</ref> with the [[Subspecies#Nomenclature|nominate subspecies]], ''T. p. philomelos'', covering the majority of the species' range. ''T. p. hebridensis'', described by [[United Kingdom|British]] [[ornithologist]] [[William Eagle Clarke]] in 1913, is a mainly [[sedentism|sedentary]] (non-migratory) form found in the [[Outer Hebrides]] and [[Isle of Skye]] in [[Scotland]], and western [[Ireland]].<ref name="IOC"/> It is the darkest subspecies, with a dark brown back, greyish rump, pale buff background colour to the underparts and grey-tinged flanks.<ref name="Clement" />

''T. p. clarkei'', described by German zoologist [[Ernst Hartert]] in 1909, and named after [[William Eagle Clarke]], breeds in the rest of [[Great Britain]] and [[Ireland]] and on mainland Europe in [[France]], [[Belgium]], the [[Netherlands]] and possibly somewhat further east. It has brown upperparts which are warmer in tone than those of the nominate form, an olive-tinged rump and rich yellow background colour to the underparts. It is a partial migrant with some birds wintering in southern France and [[Iberian peninsula|Iberia]]. This form [[Hybrid (biology)|intergrades]] with the nominate subspecies in central Europe, and with ''T. p. hebridensis'' in the [[Inner Hebrides]] and western Scotland, and in these areas birds show intermediate characteristics.<ref name="Clement" /> Finally, ''T. p. nataliae'', described by the Russian [[Sergei Aleksandrovich Buturlin|Sergei Buturlin]] in 1929, occurs in the east of the range in [[Siberia]] east of the Ural Mountains.<ref name="IOC"/>