There’s a common bird in Mohave County that is anything but common in how fierce it looks or how beautifully it can sing. The curve-billed thrasher (Toxostoma curvirostre) is a familiar sight in many people’s backyards. From a distance, it appears to be an ordinary, rather plain brown-gray bird, but up close, the piercing yellow-orange eyes and namesake long, curved bill are rather striking.
And then there’s its voice. Thrashers are in the same family, Mimidae, as mockingbirds, and it becomes apparent as soon as the thrasher sings. While perhaps not quite on the master level of a mockingbird, the thrasher still has quite a beautiful song and it can also mimic sounds and other bird calls like a mockingbird, to some extent.
Thrashers are so named for their custom of hopping or running along the ground, foraging for food by thrashing away leaves and debris with their impressive bills. Curve-billed thrashers tend to stay in the same area year-round and are not migratory. Comfortable around human habitation, they are common bird feeder visitors when seed or feed is laid on the ground or a platform.
They eat a variety of foods, from insects and arachnids to nuts, seeds, and fruit. Thrashers will also happily pluck some dry cat or dog food from an outside bowl. Thrashers are well-adapted to the desert landscape and are particularly comfortable around cactus, often perching on it or nesting in it.
Bowl-shaped nests are built starting around February and two to five pale blue, speckled eggs are laid. Thrashers defend their nests and young vigorously. Both parents care for and feed the young.
Fledglings eventually leave the nest, often before they can fully fly, and this is a dangerous time for them. After 11 to 18 days of parental feeding and stretching their wings, about 20% of the young survive to fully fledge and fly away. Predators can include snakes, cats, dogs, roadrunners and more.
Curve-billed thrashers occupy similar habitats and niches to the cactus wren, with both nesting in some of the same areas and seeking some of the same food and resources. Consequently, they sometimes compete and chase one another away from their territory, especially during fledgling season, which may be why you sometimes tend to see either one or the other but not both in a specific area. However, sometimes they share a spot, too, finding some sort of equilibrium together.
There are also other thrashers. In our area here in Mohave County, there is the Bendire’s thrasher, as well. The Bendire’s thrasher looks very similar to the curve-billed but its beak is somewhat shorter and straighter.
Curve-billed thrashers are a bit heavier, have darker bills and are more likely to be seen in suburban environments. They’re inquisitive, too, and more than once I’ve had a thrasher in my house because of an open doorway or window. They look so indignant, too, as you carry them outside back where they belong.
Seeing that piercing eye and impressive, sharp beak up close sure gives you an appreciation- and respect- for their built-in tools of survival!.
