Brown thrasher Toxostoma rufum

Identification Tips:

• Length: 10 inches
• Slender bill with base of lower mandible yellow
• Rufous crown, nape and upperparts
• Gray face
• Yellow eye
• White underparts with heavy black streaking
• White wing bars
• Long rufous tail
• Yellow legs
• Sexes similar
• Most often found in dense vegetation in hedgerows, old fields, and wood edges where it often forages on the ground

Similar species:

With its rufous upperparts and long tail the Brown Thrasher might be confused with the local Long-billed Thrasher (South Texas) but it has a shorter, less decurved bill and a browner face. Thrushes are similar but are spotted below and have shorter tails.

Length and wingspan from: Robbins, C.S., Bruun, B., Zim, H.S., (1966). Birds of North America. New York: Western Publishing Company, Inc.