Curve-billed Thrasher

Toxostoma curvirostreOrder: PASSERIFORMES Family: Mockingbirds and Thrashers (Mimidae)

Codes: Common Name: CBTH Scientific Name: TOXCUR ITIS Taxonomic No.: 178637

Curve-billed Thrasher (palemeri) Breeding Male

Birdman Mel's Backyard Tips

Overview

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. Legs and feet are black. Feeds on insects, spiders, small reptiles, fruits, seeds and berries.

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.

Topo Map: Perching-like Body

Listen to Call

Voice Text

"whit-wheet"

Interesting Facts

The Curve-billed Thrasher that lives in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona and northwestern Mexico looks slightly different than the form that lives in the Chihuahuan Desert of Texas and central Mexico, and they may be separate species.

Bird Term Glossary

Author

Gary Owen Dick

Artist

Samira Belous

Percevia^® Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The Percevia field guides, database and search protocol patent pending.

The best bird guide and bird watching search engine to identify birds!

Bird Call Credits: The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Martyn Stewart, http://www.naturesound.org, Redmond, Washington USA. The reuse or copying of bird calls in this database is strictly forbidden.

Curve-billed Thrasher

● Song: "whit-wheet"

● Foraging & 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.

● Breeding & 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.

● 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.

Flight Pattern

Long flights are swift and direct on rapidly beating wings. Shorter flights are several rapid shallow wing beats followed by brief periods of wings at sides or short glide.

Curve-billed Thrasher (palemeri) Breeding Male Body Illustration

● Range & 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.

^BreedingMonogamous, Solitary nester

^Population

^MigrationNonmigratory

^Weight2.8 Ounces

Perching-like Body

Underparts

Belly, undertail coverts, chest, flanks, and foreneck.

Upperparts

Back, rump, hindneck, wings, and crown.

4 and 6 letter alpha codes

The four letter common name alpha code is is derived from the first two letters of the common first name and the first two letters of common last name. The six letter species name alpha code is derived from the first three letters of the scientific name (genus) and the first three letters of the scientific name (species). See (1) below for the rules used to create the codes..

Four-letter (for English common names) and six-letter (for scientific names) species alpha codes were developed by Pyle and DeSante (2003, North American Bird-Bander 28:64-79) to reflect A.O.U. taxonomy and nomenclature (A.O.U. 1998) as modified by Supplements 42 (Auk 117:847-858, 2000) and 43 (Auk 119:897-906, 2002). The list has been updated by Pyle and DeSante to reflect changes reported by the A.O.U from 2003 through 2006.

Field Guide to Birds of North America