Song thrush thrush recognizes the cuckoo's non-mimetic eggs. However, the song thrush does not demonstrate the same aggression toward the adult cuckoo that is shown by the blackbird. The introduced birds in New Zealand, where the cuckoo does not occur, have, over the past 130 years, retained the ability to recognise and reject non-mimetic eggs. Adult birds may be killed by cats, little owls and sparrowhawks, and eggs and nestlings are taken by magpies, jays, and, where present, grey squirrels. As with other passerine birds, parasites are common, and include endoparasites, such as the nematode "Splendidofilaria (Avifilaria) mavis" whose specific name "mavis"
Song thrush each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture! The song also inspired the nineteenth-century British writer Thomas Hardy, who spoke in "Darkling Thrush" of the bird's "full-hearted song evensong/Of joy illimited", but twentieth-century British poet Ted Hughes in "Thrushes" concentrated on its hunting prowess: "Nothing but bounce and/stab/and a ravening second". Nineteenth-century Welsh poet Edward Thomas wrote 15 poems concerning blackbirds or thrushes, including "The Thrush": I hear the thrush, and I see Him alone at the end of the lane Near the bare poplar's tip, Singing continuously. In "The Tables