Brown Thrasher
Posted on in Recent Sightings by Hawk Mountain
A Brown Thrasher (Toxostoma rufum) visited the Native Plant Garden this week. Brown thrashers have the appearance of a wood thrush but are actually more closely related to a mockingbird or catbird. Look closely for their brilliant yellow eyes and slightly downcurved beak. In addition to their own songs, birds of the family Mimidae are able to mimic the songs of other species. Most known for this skill is the northern mockingbird, who is able to mimic around 200 songs throughout their life. Impressive, but brown thrashers far surpass that repertoire, able to mimic over 1,000 different songs. An underrated songster indeed!
Photo by Bill Moses.