General

Curve-billed Thrasher: Medium-sized thrasher (palmeri), with gray upperparts and spotted, pale gray underparts. Eyes are orange-red and bill is long and decurved. Tail is long and dark gray. Sexes are similar. Juvenile has straighter and shorter bill, and yellow eyes.

Range and Habitat

Curve-billed Thrasher: Resident from southwestern U.S. to southern Mexico. Preferred habitats include dense aggregations of cholla cactus, mesquite, or palo verde. Also uses dense growth in urban areas.

Breeding and Nesting

Curve-billed Thrasher: One to five pale blue green eggs with light brown spots are laid in a nest made of twigs and rootlets, lined with fine materials, and built in a dense thorny desert shrub or in a branching clump of cactus, usually 2 to 8 feet above the ground. Incubation ranges from 12 to 15 days and is carried out by both parents.

Foraging and Feeding

Curve-billed Thrasher: Eats mostly insects, but also cactus seeds and fruits, and various berries; forages on the ground, tossing aside litter in search of food.

Readily Eats

Suet, Sunflower Seed, Nuts

Vocalization

Curve-billed Thrasher: Song is melodic, varied, and intricate, with low trills and warbles, often with two or three repetitions of phrases. Call is a sharp "whit-wheet", which sometimes includes three notes.

Similar Species

Curve-billed Thrasher: Bendire`s Thrasher has smaller size and straighter bill with a yellow base to lower mandible and lower call. Sage Thrasher is smaller, has yellow eyes, short straight slender bill, white underparts, two white wing-bars and white-tipped outer tail feathers.