LeContes Revisted

A couple of years ago I went looking for a LeConte's Thrasher in Arizona. As I noted in my description of that endeavor, I wouldn't mind heading back to see them again.

Friday morning I was able to head back to the thrasher site. I anticipated finding singing thrashers this time since I was visiting during the time of the year when they would be expected to be setting up territories and courting. No such luck. I couldn't hear anything singing over the traffic noise on the nearby highway as the sun broke over the Phoenix smog to the east and lit up the steam rising from the nearby nuclear power plant to the west. Not exactly a pristine birding experience, but this is where I knew the thrashers could be found. I wandered around the area for quite a while, watching the Sage Sparrows dart from shrub to shrub with their tails in the air as the White-crowned Sparrows flitted around. I saw one Sage Thrasher obviously molting and a few Anna's Hummingbird moving around the tops of the creosote bushes.



I was just about to call it a morning when I thought I saw a thrasher dart under a shrub. I waited and sure enough, it was what I had hoped to see. I shadowed the bird as it foraged from one shrub to the next.



Most of my observations were the bird running across the open ground. What is it with this posture in desert birds? Tail up and darting across the ground - Sage Sparrow, LeConte's Thrashers, and Roadrunners all have this same look.



I found at least two thrashers working through the shrubs. At one point I watched one of the birds thrashing through some loamy soil at the base of a saltbush.



It would bury it's bill to the base in the dirt and move it back and forth looking for some invertebrate morsel.



It's eyes would close when the bill was buried to the base.



I watched the bird forage for a while and then it moved off to the next shrub. I followed the bird for a bit longer and it eventually jumped up on a low branch and sat there for a while, giving me a good look. Then it was time for me to head back to the hotel, gather our goods, and say goodbye to the desert again. For now.

Scientist and Soldier Birds

One of the reasons I was excited to go the Phoenix this March was the opportunity to look for a couple of bird species I had not run across yet. Despite birding for better than 25 years, mostly in the states west of the Mississippi, there are still a few species I have missed finding here and there. This time it was two thrasher species and fortunately there was one spot where I might find both species a bit west of Phoenix.
The two species were the LeConte's and Bendire'sThrashers. The LeConte's Thrasher was named after John Lawrence LeConte, a noted entomologist who specialized in beetles but also was a well-rounded naturalist interested in birds (the LeConte's Sparrow was not named after John Lawrence but instead was named after his cousin John). Bendire's Thashers were named after Charles Emil Bendire, a German-born United States soldier naturalist who became interested in natural history a bit later in his career but amassed a large collection of eggs and bird specimens obtained while stationed in various stations throughout the west. The LeConte's in particular was a species I had missed a couple of times in other places and really wanted to see.
Early Friday morning found me navigating through Phoenix traffic heading west on I-10. After one missed turn in the dark I found the junction of the Salome Highway and Baseline Road - the spot I was directed to to look for both of these species. About 10 minutes before sunrise (0630 in Phoenix) I headed into the saltbrush and mesquite to see what I could see. LeConte's Thrashers are know for being hard to find because they tend to run through their saltbush habitat and are not often found perched where the might be easily found. However, during the breeding season in February and March the males become much more conspicuous when singing on their territories. This year the spring rains came early and my local contact thought they might be done singing by the time I arrived. He was right. I only heard one thrasher singing in the mesquite as the sun came up and it didn't seem right to me to be a LeConte's. Then, in the gathering light there was movement - a streak across the ground to my left towards the rising sun.


It certainly looked like a LeConte's to me but having not seen one before and after reading all the accounts of how difficult they were to find when not singing, I wasn't quite sure. I had found the bird without finding a singing bird first and it seemed too easy for it to be the elusive LeConte's. I followed the bird as it foraged among the saltbush and as the light got better I could tell it was indeed the bird I was after. As I watched the thrashers scoot across the open ground with their tail cocked in the air looking for a quick bite of spider, scorpion, or whatever was on the menu that morning, they reminded me of a Roadrunner or a prehistoric bird whose wings seemed a bit superfluous for much of the day. The only time I saw one use their wings was when they dashed into the lower branches of a satlbush, only to emerge on the far side, running again.







The bird I had originally heard singing in the mesquite in the near dark was still singing and had now been joined by a Northern Mockingbird. It was time to find out what it was. As I got close I could see the bird singing in a dense patch of branches and what-do-you-know - it was the other thrasher I was looking for - a Bendire's.



I watched this bird for a short while too and then wandered around a bit more hoping for more looks at the LeConte's. By the time I left to head back to town and catch my flight I had found two LeConte's and one Bendire's for sure. There may have been as many as four LeConte's running through the saltbush at this site though and at one point I had both LeConte's and Bendires in my binoculars at the same time.
I would love to come back to this spot and work at getting some better photos of the LeConte's Thrashers and spend some more time watching them dart over the ground as they foraged through the saltbush.