Scientific Name: Toxostoma curvirostre
Residency: Year-round in central and southern Arizona.
Diet: Forages on the ground for insects, fruit, berries, seeds (digs holes in the soil with its curved bill). Will visit ground seed feeders and bird-baths.
Predators: Egg predators: coachwhips, striped whipsnakes, gopher snakes, common kingsnake, desert spiny lizard, ants, Greater Roadrunner, round-tailed ground squirrel, and Harris antelope ground squirrel. A Harris? Hawk has been observed taking a fledgling. A Mexican boa has been observed constricting an adult.
Nesting: Both the female and male build the nest - a bulky loose stick bowl, often in a thorny shrub, in the arms of a chain cholla cactus, or Buckhorn Cholla, or in a small tree. She lays 1-5 pale blue-green eggs with many brown spots. The pair often remains together for an entire year, and raises one to three broods in that year. The nest may be repaired and reused.
Nesting Records: Scottsdale Community College, Brown's Ranch, and Watt Preserve.
Notes: The Curve-billed Thrasher is the best known of the six thrashers residing in Arizona. It is the most widespread of the western thrashers. Like other thrashers, it spends as much time scurrying around on the ground as it spends flying. It is most common in cholla-rich desertscrub, but also resides in brush thickets in riparian and urban habitats. It competes with Cactus Wrens, driving the latter out of its territory. Conservation status: populations are decreasing in some areas owing to development by humans.

Photo: Photo at right was taken at Scottsdale Community College on April 21, 2003. For more photos, click on camera icon.

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