Two days ago, we noticed a male Thrasher on top of one of our pines, just singing his heart out. You didn’t need to be a bird to hear him singing his praises and the wonderful things he could do.
As the wonderful things he could do was to provide a yard with suet, seeds, fresh water and a safe place to build a nest as well as his magnificent self, it didn’t take him long to attract attention.
The lovely lady who took him up on his invitation has been happily building a nest with him in the climbing roses (about 4 feet away from the water closet window), bathing and dining out with him.
As we are bored to tears, mom and I are spending much time standing in the water closet to look out the window at the small bit of hope hidden by thorns.
For the record, Thrashers get up too early. They have a clump of dried grass that they want for their nest, but they don’t want the clump, they want individual pieces of dried grass. Both of them keep shaking and pulling at the clump until the get a piece off to take to the nest. That’s cute. They also yell at it and each other. Not so cute at dawn.
I don’t think I’ll be able to see eggs, but I’ll probably be able to tell when they are nesting. Both sexes care for the young.
They sure are going through the suet, though. A cake every 3 days is rather excessive in my opinion. Oh well, they are entertaining and I don’t have a life.
Have you identified the species? I’ve never heard of “desert thrasher”. I think about 6 kinds of thrashers occur in the southwestern states. Some hard to identify, distinguished mostly by bill size/shape and breast markings.
@jtur88 I am sorry I wasn’t clear enough. I was referring to the Bendire’s Thrasher in the link. Desert Thrashers are what the local bird watchers call the 4 species of thrashers that hang out in this area.
I’ve seen Curve-billed Thrasher’s hanging out in the area, they are easy for me to identify because of their white stripes on their under wings when they are flying. I don’t know if I’ve seen the other local thrashers because usually I can’t see them well enough to be able to make out the markings.
I’m positive about the identification of the birds nesting 4 feet away from the water closet window, though. In other times, I would invite other bird watchers to hang out in our water closet and look out the window. Sad that those times are gone.
@panache45 I am totally jealous! I’ve seen eagles soaring overhead, but never got close to one in the wild.
Very cool. Every year my wife and I get a couple pairs of Juncos nesting in hanging flower pots. We have watched a number of Juncos go from eggs to flying for the first time.
Wow – Bendires are really hard to find. I’ve only IDed one, voice assisted, in the oil fields near Taft CA. I’ve seen people mistakenly call them. But I never lived in the desert, just a visiting birder there.
I didn’t know how lucky I was! Well, besides having birds nesting that close to a window that is. On the other side of the next street over is miles and miles of empty high desert. We see lots of interesting wildlife.
I always get happy when I see my first Turkey Buzzard of the year, because that means spring has finally arrived.
I am pretty sure we have Thrasher eggs! I can peer into the roses and see a nesting bird. Hopefully I will have lots of fun stories to and maybe even pics to share in a couple of months.
Exciting life and death battle with a king snake. I rescued the snake. There were two Curved Beak Thrashers involved, while one was distracting the snake, the other one would swoop in and bite its tail. They took off about an inch before I got involved.
