Le Conte's Thrasher

Toxostoma leconteiOrder: PASSERIFORMESFamily: Mockingbirds and Thrashers (Mimidae)

General

Le Conte's Thrasher: Medium-sized thrasher with plain gray or gray-brown body with paler throat and rufous undertail feathers. Eyes are dark. Bill is long, decurved, and black. Tail is long and dark. Sexes are similar.

Range and Habitat

Le Conte's Thrasher: Resident in deserts of southwestern U.S. from southeastern California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah, and western and central Arizona to northwestern Mexico. Found in open desert scrub, alkali desert scrub, and desert succulent scrub.

Listen to Call

Voice Text

"tweep", "ch-reeip"

Interesting Facts

The Le Conte’s Thrasher was first described in 1851 by George Newbold Lawrence, an American businessman and amateur ornithologist.

The palest of all thrashers, it was named for American entomologist John Lawrence LeConte.

Satellite imagery shows that 26 percent of their historical breeding areas no longer have suitable habitat for this species.

Author

Gary Owen Dick

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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.

Le Conte's Thrasher

Le Conte's Thrasher: Medium thrasher with plain gray or gray-brown body with paler throat and rufous undertail feathers. Eyes are dark. Bill is long, decurved, and black. Tail is long and dark. Legs and feet are black. Feeds on insects and their larvae, spiders, fruits and berries.

● Song: "tweep", "ch-reeip"

● Foraging & Feeding: Le Conte's Thrasher: Diet consists primarily of arthropods, including scorpions, spiders, beetles, grasshoppers, and caterpillars; occasionally eats seeds, small lizards, or other small vertebrates; forages on the ground and by digging with bill and feet, sometimes several inches deep into substrate.

● Breeding & nesting: Le Conte's Thrasher: Two to four blue green eggs with brown spots at larger end are laid in a bulky twig nest lined with feathers. Eggs are incubated for 15 days by both parents.

● Similar species: Le Conte's Thrasher: California Thrasher is larger and darker.

Flight Pattern

Short flights wih shallow wing beats.

Le Conte's Thrasher Breeding Adult Body Illustration

● Range & Habitat: Le Conte's Thrasher: Resident in deserts of southwestern U.S. from southeastern California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah, and western and central Arizona to northwestern Mexico. Found in open desert scrub, alkali desert scrub, and desert succulent scrub.

^BreedingMonogamous, Solitary nester

^PopulationYes but uncommon

^MigrationNonmigratory

^Weight2.2 Ounces

Field Guide to Birds of North America