• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Brown Thrasher? (1 Viewer)

I'm bothered by the size/shape of the bill for this being a thrasher (of any species), and the fact that the breast seems more spotted than streaked. Looks more like some kind of thrush, like maybe a young Wood Thrush, where you can just see the beginning of the facial pattern. But even then, the largest of NA thrushes is under 8", and Tom's bird is 10-12". I'm stumped. ;)
 
It doesn't look much like a juvenile Wood Thrush to me, I think even very young ones exhibit a bold eye ring. Any chance of Brown Thrasher/Thrush sp. hybridization? I'm not even sure it's possible but I have no other ideas.
 
I've gone backwards and forwards on this one. Convinced myself that the bill was not curved enough, the coloration was not rufous enough and that the breast was not streaked enough. Looking through various web photographs I've come full circle and now think it's a Brown Thrasher.
 
The head is sure bent oddly. I think of Mocking Birds and Brown Thrashers as similarly shaped. Tail is long enough.
 
That picture is extremely interesting to me. The reason being is that I had a similar debate with myself the other day. I saw 2 Brown Thrashers the other day. In the previous few times I saw Brown Thrashers the tails were not fanned out like they are in your picture so it threw me when I saw them with fanned tails. That leads me to my next question-what is the reason for birds fanning there tails out like that and do they do it more often at certain times of the year?
 
Last edited:
lvn600 said:
That picture is extremely interesting to me. The reason being is that I had a similar debate with myself the other day. I saw 2 Brown Thrashers the other day. In the previous few times I saw Brown Thrashers the tails were not fanned out like they are in your picture so it threw me when I saw them with fanned tails. That leads me to my next question-what is the reason for birds fanning there tails out like that and do they do it more often at certain times of the year?

I think the fanned out tail is only a momentary stretch of sort during grooming.
 
Warning! This thread is more than 19 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top