The song thrush breeds in forests, gardens and parks, and is partially migratory with many birds wintering in southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East; it has also been introduced into New Zealand and Australia.

The song thrush was described by German ornithologist Christian Ludwig Brehm in 1831, and still bears its original scientific name, Turdus philomelos.

[3] The generic name, Turdus, is the Latin for thrush, and the specific epithet refers to a character in Greek mythology, Philomela, who had her tongue cut out, but was changed into a singing bird.

They are less closely related to other European thrush species such as the blackbird (T. merula) which are descended from ancestors that had colonised the Canary islands from Africa and subsequently reached Europe from there.

T. p. hebridensis, described by British ornithologist William Eagle Clarke in 1913, is a mainly sedentary (non-migratory) form found in the Outer Hebrides and Isle of Skye in Scotland, and western Ireland.

[11] It is the darkest subspecies, with a dark brown back, greyish rump, pale buff background colour to the underparts and grey-tinged flanks.

[12] 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.

This form 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.

[12] The song thrush breeds in most of Europe (although not in the greater part of Iberia, lowland Italy or southern Greece), and across Ukraine and Russia almost to Lake Baikal.

[20] In New Zealand, there appears to be a limited detrimental effect on some invertebrates due to predation by introduced bird species,[21] and the song thrush also damages commercial fruit crops in that country.

[23] The song thrush typically nests in forest with good undergrowth and nearby more open areas, and in western Europe also uses gardens and parks.

[12] In intensively farmed areas where agricultural practices appear to have made cropped land unsuitable, gardens are an important breeding habitat.

In the milder areas where some birds stay year round, the resident male remains in his breeding territory, singing intermittently, but the female may establish a separate individual wintering range until pair formation begins in the early spring.

[12] Migration may start as early as late August in the most easterly and northerly parts of the range, but the majority of birds, with shorter distances to cover, head south from September to mid-December.

[12] The female song thrush builds a neat cup-shaped nest lined with mud and dry grass in a bush, tree or creeper, or, in the case of the Hebridean subspecies, on the ground.

[32] A Russian study of blood parasites showed that all the fieldfares, redwings and song thrushes sampled carried haematozoans, particularly Haemoproteus and Trypanosoma.

[33] Ixodes ticks are also common, and can carry pathogens, including tick-borne encephalitis in forested areas of central and eastern Europe and Russia,[34] and, more widely, Borrelia bacteria.

Like its relative, the blackbird, the song thrush finds animal prey by sight, has a run-and-stop hunting technique on open ground, and will rummage through leaf-litter seeking potential food items.

The thrush often uses a favorite stone as an "anvil" on which to break the shell of the snail before extracting the soft body and invariably wiping it on the ground before consumption.

[6] The precise reasons for the decline are not known but may be related to the loss of hedgerows, a move to sowing crops in autumn rather than spring, and possibly the increased use of pesticides.

[6] In Spain, this species is normally caught as it migrates through the country, often using birdlime which, although banned by the European Union, is still tolerated and permitted in the Valencian Community.