PHOTO: © Jay Gilliam
from the wild side
Brown thrasher Toxostoma rufum
With its huge repertoire of songs and calls, the brown thrasher is a wonderful songbird to have in your garden. In spring, as it defends its territory, this large 9- to 12-in.-long bird is easy to see. The rest of the time, it likes to skulk around beneath shrubs and hedges, so it’s much harder to spot.To make your garden attractive to this bird, don’t rake areas under shrubs. That way it can search through fallen leaves for worms and insects. If it likes the neighborhood and the food, it will come back to the same area every year.
During the summer, you’ll see brown thrashers in the eastern two-thirds of the United States and southern Canada. They spend winters in southeastern Texas.
