Is the Brown Thrasher colorful? No.
Are they easy to spot? Not so much.
Do they have one of the largest musical repertoires in the bird world? Absolutely.
The Brown Thrasher is known for its complex and varied songs, featuring a large array of phrases and mimicry of other birds.
This article aims to explore all about the Brown Thrasher. We’ll be looking at what they look and sound like, as well as looking at their nesting behaviors and discovering some similar species along the way.
Read on to discover more about the Brown Thrasher.
What Is A Brown Thrasher?
Brown Thrashers are a type of passerine songbird found across central and eastern North America.
While they are seldom seen, they are often heard.
The Brown Thrasher is found in dense thickets of vegetation, where they forage throughout the undergrowth.
In fact, their name stems from the “thrashing” behavior they exhibit when hunting.
Using that heavyset bill, they comb through leaves and other natural debris in search of insects or other invertebrate prey. Once located, the Brown Thrasher strikes and vigorously shakes its prey to kill it.
What Does A Brown Thrasher Look Like?
Somewhat similar to a thrush, the Brown Thrasher typically have ruddy wings with streaking on their pale breast.
However, unlike thrushes, the Brown Thrasher has a long, slightly downcurved heavy-set bill and conspicuous yellow eyes.
They spend much of their time on the ground, where they forage in the leaf litter.
To me, Brown Thrashers look like a thrush crossed with a roadrunner.
Their bill, almost disproportionate to the rest of their body, is the ideal weapon of choice for tackling insects – their favorite prey.
If you do manage to spot the Brown Thrasher, you’ll wonder how you ever missed it.
In the open, their bold markings make them conspicuous.
But in the dark tangle of shrubbery, these markings are the perfect camouflage.
This form of camouflage is called disruptive coloration. This technique helps break up an animal’s outline, making it harder to see against the background.
How To Spot The Brown Thrasher
Due to its secretive behavior, and their affinity to dense vegetation, not much is known about the Brown Thrasher.
Scientists don’t even know their exact population size.
However, all is not lost for amateur birders.
To catch a glimpse of this illusive bird, head towards dense thickets, hedgerows and even forest edges throughout central and eastern North America.
Being the state bird of Georgia, this will be a good place to start. They are also readily seen in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri.
More often than not, you’ll likely hear the Brown Thrasher before you see it as they rummage through the leaf litter in search of insects.
If you live in central or eastern North America, you can entice Brown Thrashers to your own backyard by offering food.
While insects make up a large proportion of their diet, Brown Thrashers will visit feeders or forage on the ground below for any fallen seeds.
They are more likely to visit if there is dense vegetation close to feeders, especially berry-producing vegetation.
During spring and early summer, as nesting season begins, males leave the safety of dense vegetation and climb towards higher, exposed branches.
Here, they begin to sing.
To some, the songs of a Brown Thrasher is similar to the Northern Mockingbird – with one key difference.
If you hear repeated song patterns in pairs, rather than triplets, you’ll most likely be listening to a Brown Thrasher.
What Does A Brown Thrasher Sound Like?
With over 1,000 recorded songs and calls, Brown Thrashers have one of the most varied repertoires of bird calls in North America.
Like Catbirds and Mockingbirds, Brown Thrashers are mimics.
They will, rather crudely, imitate the calls of other bird species in the area – such as Northern Flickers, Tufted Titmice and Wood Thrushes.
But they’re not just mimics.
Males, especially at the start of the breeding season, will sing a series of long and loud songs with no definitive beginning and end.
This is when you need to tune in.
Brown Thrashers will often repeat phrases twice, before moving on to another song or call.
In contrast, the similarly sounding mockingbird will sing three or more phrases repeatedly before moving on.
It’s no easy feat identifying a bird by sound alone, but by carefully listening to how many times a call is repeated, you can start to get an idea. Easier said than done.
Brown Thrashers also make a series of calls, the most common of which sounds like a smacking kiss.
While complex songs are mostly performed by males, calls are used by both sexes and used for immediate functions such as alarm, contact with flocks, or begging for food.
Nesting Behaviours Of The Brown Thrasher
Both males and females help incubate the eggs and feed the young – a relatively rare behavior in birds.
Like all passerine birds, the chicks of the Brown Thrasher are born altricial. This means they hatch from the egg featherless and helpless, in need of extensive parental care.
Yet, despite this helplessness, nestlings have been observed leaving the nest, fully feathered, within 9 days of hatching.
This fast fledgling rate may be attributed to the relatively risky habitat the Brown Thrasher nests in.
Areas high in shrubbery undergrowth are popular hideout places for typical nest predators – such as snakes and mammals.
To mitigate high nest mortalities, Brown Thrashers have multiple broods per season.
Nest Defense
Brown Thrashers take nest defense very seriously.
And you would too if you were the prime target of the parasitic brown-headed cowbird.
Cowbirds are brood parasites, meaning they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds. Oftentimes, cowbirds will replace existing eggs within the nest for their own.
Brown Thrashers are not completely defenseless against this type of parasitism.
Their aggressive nature means they do not shy away from direct contact. Brown Thrashers, if given the opportunity, will chase away cowbirds.
However, when parent Brown Thrashers let their guard down, a cowbird may lay an egg in the Thrasher next.
If a parent can identify when a foreign egg is present, they can actively eject said egg.
But that’s not always the case.
If a cowbird egg cannot be identified, but there are cowbirds in the area, Brown Thrashers may decide to abandon their nest and eggs altogether.
As drastic as this sounds, they are effectively choosing to sacrifice their own eggs, rather than run the risk of investing in raising a cowbird chick.
And it’s not just cowbirds the Brown Thrasher needs to be vigilant of.
Any unsuspecting person or pet that strays too close to a nest of the Brown Thrasher may be subject to a strike or two. Strikes that are powerful enough to draw blood, courtesy of their strong bill.
Similar Species
As I said earlier, Brown Thrashers look a bit like a thrush crossed with a roadrunner.
However, there are some other, near-identical species to the Brown Thrasher that are a lot closer to home.
Long-billed Trasher
In their southern range, both Brown Thashers and Long-billed Thrashers overlap. A nightmare for amateur birders.
But if you look closely, slight differences will appear.
For starters, look for the coloration. Where Brown Thrashers have a more rusty reddy color, Long-bill Thrashers are gray-brown. The streaking on the Long-bill is also a lot darker, as is their face. Streaking extends to the undertail coverts.
Long-billed Thrashers also have a longer, more curved and darker bill.
Final Thoughts
Who needs flashy colors when you have a repertoire of over 1,000 songs and calls.
Besides, the Brown Thrasher prefers to remain hidden away in the thick undergrowth.
As such, you’re more likely to hear the Brown Thrasher before you see it.
And, if you’re in central or eastern North America, just remember: don’t stray too close to thickets or hedgerows unless you want to run the risk of being mobbed by a nesting Brown Thrasher.
