Measurements
Both Sexes
- Length
- 10.2–11.4 in
26–29 cm - Wingspan
- 13 in
33 cm - Weight
- 2.4 oz
68 g
Other Names
- Sennett's Thrasher
- Moqueur à long bec (French)
- Cuitlacoche pico largo, Cuitlacoche (Spanish)
Cool Facts
- Although the Long-billed Thrasher has a longer bill than the similar-looking Brown Thrasher, it does not have a particularly long bill for a thrasher. Le Conte's and California thrashers, and even fellow Texan Crissal Thrasher have much longer and more strongly curved bills.
- The Long-billed Thrasher has a long and complicated song like other thrashers and mockingbirds, but it is not known to include mimicry in its repertoire.
Habitat
Scrub
Riparian woodland and dense, scrubby thickets, especially of mesquite.
Food
Omnivore
Insects, spiders, snails, and berries.
Nesting
Nesting Facts
- Clutch Size
- 2–5 eggs
- Egg Description
- Pale greenish white, minutely and heavily speckled with dingy brown markings.
- Condition at Hatching
- Helpless, with scattered tufts of black down.
Nest Description
A bulky cup made of thorny twigs, lined with grass, straw, bark, or rootlets. Nest in center of dense thickets under large trees.
Nest Placement
Shrub
Behavior
Ground Forager
Forages on ground, by sweeping bill side to side in leaf litter. Tosses aside leaf litter and twigs.
Conservation
Least Concern
Clearing of brushland for agriculture caused decline of Long-billed Thrashers in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas over the last century. Given no special status.
Credits
- Tweit, R. C. 1997. Long-billed Thrasher (Toxostoma longirostre). In The Birds of North America, No. 317 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and The American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C.