General

Le Conte's Thrasher: Medium-sized thrasher with plain gray or gray-brown body with paler throat and rufous undertail feathers. Eyes are dark. Bill is long, decurved, and black. Tail is long and dark. Sexes are similar.

Range and Habitat

Le Conte's Thrasher: Resident in deserts of southwestern U.S. from southeastern California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah, and western and central Arizona to northwestern Mexico. Found in open desert scrub, alkali desert scrub, and desert succulent scrub.

Breeding and Nesting

Le Conte's Thrasher: Two to four blue green eggs with brown spots at larger end are laid in a bulky twig nest lined with feathers. Eggs are incubated for 15 days by both parents.

Foraging and Feeding

Le Conte's Thrasher: Diet consists primarily of arthropods, including scorpions, spiders, beetles, grasshoppers, and caterpillars; occasionally eats seeds, small lizards, or other small vertebrates; forages on the ground and by digging with bill and feet, sometimes several inches deep into substrate.

Readily Eats

Suet, Sunflower Seed, Nuts

Vocalization

Le Conte's Thrasher: Song is a loud and musical warbling with infrequent repetition of phrases. Call is a rising "tweep" or "ch-reeip."

Similar Species

Le Conte's Thrasher: California Thrasher is larger and darker.