Mike Powell

When I stepped out of my car on Thursday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, I notice a bird pecking about in the grass at the edge of the parking lot.The lenght of its tail made me think of a Northern Mockingbird, but the coloration was more sparrow-like. As I tracked the bird in my camera’s viewfinder, the bird lifted its head and I caught a glimpse of its bright yellow eye and realized that it was a Brown Thrasher (Toxostoma rufum), a species that I have seen only a few times before.

I really like the basic description of the species on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website—”It can be tricky to glimpse a Brown Thrasher in a tangled mass of shrubbery, and once you do you may wonder how such a boldly patterned, gangly bird could stay so hidden. Brown Thrashers wear a somewhat severe expression thanks to their heavy, slightly downcurved bill and staring yellow eyes, and they are the only thrasher species east of Texas. Brown Thrashers are exuberant singers, with one of the largest repertoires of any North American songbird.”

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.