CALIFORNIA THRASHER
Toxostoma redivivium
Order:  Passeriformes

Family:  Mimidae

 Alpha Code:  CATH                AOU#:  710.0

Band Size:  3.
     The California Thrasher is common in the Santa Monica Mountains, although it is not caught in the nets very often (95 encounters in seven years).  Most of our captures are Juv/HY birds.  California Thrashers are like other thrashers, a large bird with a down curved bill.  The California Thrasher is found exclusively in California.  Its habitat is primarily chaparral and is found along the coast circling around (but not in) the Central Valley into the chaparral foothills of the western Sierra Nevada.  It also extends into the high desert where scrub-like habitat is common.  Fortunately, it has a non-overlapping distribution with other thrashers, so the only place where one might encounter other thrashers would be in the eastern edge of its distribution, where it might overlap with LeConte's Thrasher and with Sage Thrashers in migration.

     California Thrashers are one of the larger passerines, about 31 cm long and weighing about 70 g.  It is a bird with dark brown upperparts with a pale supercilium and dark cheeks.  The throat is pale contrasting with the darker breast.  The belly and undertail coverts are tawny buff or tan.

     The bird is most commonly seen/heard during breeding season, which is unusually early (Dec-Jul) as passerines go.  It sits on top of large shrubs singing a loud sustained and repeated guttural song.  It reminds one of its fellow mimid, the Northern Mockingbird, but the song nowhere as elaborate. 

Bird Banding:  There are very few clue to helping one age and sex these birds.  The sexes are equal by plumage with males developing a brood patch.  Molt limits and shapes of feathers differences are described in Pyle, but are difficult to see without practice.  In addition, feathers are often quite worn as the bird dives in and out of the dense chaparral vegetation.  Mostly, I encounter Juv/HY birds, which have buffy-cinnamon edging to the greater coverts and  tertials. 

I have noted that smaller handed individuals have problems holding and banding the bird at the same time.  A second bander is often necessary.  If only a single bander is available, one trick is to leave the bird in the bag, extract a leg out of the bag opening and band the bird.