A bird of coastal rocks and cliffs that is also seen in Japanese towns.
In Japanese adults, males have blue heads, breasts and backs; females are grey-brown with scaling on the belly.
As Blue Rock Thrushes spread from coastal cliffs into towns, the arrangement of buildings and ground cover offers a clue to their urban habitat. A 2011–2012 study in a Hyogo town about 20 km from the sea found breeding territories concentrated where tall buildings were common. Males sang more often from high places and sought positions above nearby rivals.
They foraged instead in ground-level grassland, hunting small animals there. The city’s pairing of tall structures and open ground resembles the cliffs and open shore of the coastal landscape. The birds were present year-round in the town, using elevated singing sites alongside feeding areas on the ground.
IUCN Red List · Least Concern (LC) · Global species-level assessment
BirdLife International’s 2016 IUCN global assessment lists the Blue Rock Thrush as Least Concern (LC). The Hyogo study describes habitat and behaviour in one town, not a change in the species’ global population.