Brown Thrasher (BRATH)

Toxostoma rufum

Adult Brown Thrasher © Melissa James / Macaulay Library

Juvenile Brown Thrasher © John Wyatt / Macaulay Library

Range

The Brown Thrasher’s range extends from the East Coast of the U.S. to as far west as Montana. These birds can be found as far south as Florida and north into some areas of Canada.

Additional Maps

Identification

This species is a large thrasher with bold patterns of blackish streaks on whitish underparts. The upperparts and long tail are rufous (reddish-brown), and the wingbars are whitish. The eyes are yellow, the legs are long, and the bill is medium-length, thin, and straightish with a slight down curve. The Brown Thrasher is sexually dimorphous, so the sexes are alike in size and coloration.

This species can sing more than 1,100 different song types and can even imitate other birds like Wood Thrushes, Northern Flickers, and Chuck-will’s-widows. Their song is comparable to the pattern of a Northern Mockingbird, but with pairs of phrases repeated instead of triplets. This bird can be quite secretive and difficult to spot, but as they forage through leaf litter they often make a lot of noise. Males perch on high branches to sing during spring and early summer.

Listen to its songs and calls here.

Habitat

Within the breeding range, this species lives in a wide variety of habitats such as riparian areas (adjacent to bodies of water), grassy roadsides and prairies, successional scrubs, thickets, and suburbs. Along the coastal plain of Long Island, New York, these birds have been found in dry, open country, especially in scrubby fields and thickets. Brown Thrashers found in western New York prefer brushy hillsides covered in hawthorn. They can be found throughout the state of New York except for in the Adirondack Mountains, where few have been recorded. They can also be found in the pine barrens of New Jersey, especially in habitats that are regularly burned and dominated by pitch pine, scrub oaks, and black jack oaks, but not by canopy oaks. Some thrashers stay in the southeastern region of the U.S. year-round, but those who breed in the northeastern region migrate to the south during winter.

Conservation Status

Listed as Decreasing by American Bird Conservancy
Listed as Least Concern, with populations decreasing, by the International Union for Conservation of Nature
In a report from 2009, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) listed the species population as decreasing in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont, and New York
Listed as a Special Concern in Connecticut

Threats to Conservation

Brown Thrashers are threatened by human-related issues such as the use of pesticides and other contaminants, collisions with cars and telecommunications towers, degradation of habitat, and human disturbance. Thrashers may need a larger area to breed in compared to birds that breed in edgelands, so their territory is more likely to be encroached on by human deforestation and development. However, there’s hope for population recovery because this bird does well in young forests and shrublands reclaimed from human uses such as mining. Although there’s much more research to be done on this bird, it’s important to note that flagging nests and approaching the birds can set off their alarm call, alerting not just other thrashers, but also American Crows and other predators about nest locations.

Funding Opportunities