Mr. Thrasher

Mr. Thrasher

I first ran into this Bird when I was living in Walnut Creek, California about 15 years ago. He was sitting in the front yard on a pyracantha bush. He was brown, about the size of a Robin, but not as plump and he had a long beak that curved down. I am not much of a birder but I enjoy it when I can recognize a bird. This one I had never seen before. I went for my little bird book. He stayed there and let me look him up and put a name to him (a complicated process for me). He was a Thrasher. There are several kinds of thrashers but thrasher was enough for me.

I didn’t see another until about 10 years later. One spring I was camped near a water spot in the Anza Borrega Desert in Southern California. He came hopping into camp and then hung around for all the days we were there. I think we were the visitors. It was his home.

When we moved to Tucson a year ago, there he was, a regular visitor to our back yard bird feeders. Each day I would take my dog for a long walk of about 2 miles, down one wash and up another, through the surrounding desert. One day I heard a bird singing about 20 yards away at the top of the wash. I wondered what it was. It had a complex song and I thought that maybe it was a mocking bird. From a distance it was about the right size. Of course I didn’t have my glasses so I couldn’t get a good look. I heard this song several times after and wondered what it was. Finally the day came when I had my glasses and I heard the song close by. I waited and looked and moved around and there was Mr. Thrasher in the top of a mesquite tree singing his heart out. I had always thought, based on his name, and seeing him at the feeder, that he just hopped around on the ground and picked up seeds.