The Ashy-headed Laughingthrush is a rangy bird, 23 centimetre (9 in) in length with a long floppy tail. It is rufous brown above and deep buff below, with a grey head and white throat. Like other babblers, these are noisy birds, and the characteristic laughing calls are often the best indication that they are present, since they are often difficult to see in their preferred habitat.
The Ashy-headed Laughingthrush is a resident breeding bird endemic to Sri Lanka. Its habitat is rainforest, and it is seldom seen away from deep jungle or dense bamboo thickets in the wet zone. This species, like most babblers, is not migratory, and has short rounded wings and a weak flight.
Although its habitat is under threat, this laughingthrush occurs in all the forests of the wet zone, and is quite common at prime sites like Kitulgala andSinharaja. It builds its nest in a bush, concealed in dense masses of foliage. The normal clutch is three or four eggs.
Very slightly larger than the Southern Common Babbler, and easily distinguish from both it and the rufous Babbler by its mainly black beak, dark grey legs, grey head, and dark reddish-brown back, wings and tail. It is also a neater-looking bird.
Like the two preceding babblers, it lives in flocks, and is a noisy bird keeping up a constant flow of 'babblings', squeaks, and chatterings, which can easily be mistaken for those of the Rufous Babbler - and which inhabits the same jungles.
The breeding season is in the first quarter the year. Ashy-headed Laughing Thrush's nest was found only in 1984. It was on a thin tree about 15 feet high. It was an untidy football-sized mass of twigs and leaves with a neat nest-cup on top. The turquoise-blue eggs are measure about 25×18 mm.
It is confined to the deep forests of the wet zone and the adjacent mountains where, on the southern and western aspects of the main range, it ascends to at least 5,000 feet.
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