The  tide is turning on the opinions of the thrasher's identity.

14) "I am concerned that one photo, poor light, and a poor angle could be misleading. However, from what we have to work with I am concerned that I see no contrast between a rufous-brown nape and a gray face. If the nape and back are concolor (brown) with the face, then I would say that the bird is Brown Thrasher. But I remain concerned that what I am seeing is an artifact of the photo, rather than a critical field mark.

15) "First, Long-billed Thrashers, at least all I have seen, do not have a red eye, but yellow just like Brown Thrashers.  Second, I have never seen a Long-billed look that rusty, unless - as suggested [see (14) above] - we may have some lighting problems with this photo.  I still believe it to be a Brown Thrasher."

16) "We reply too much on what our eyes see in a digital photo, which often does not represent true color. Long-billed versus Brown Thrasher photos are great examples.  I've been shown thrasher photos from local folks insisting the bird was way too rufous/reddish to be a Long-billed Thrasher. However, always take a look at the whole photo and ask yourself if the rest of the colors look natural. Case in point is the original photo. The mesquite limbs look unnaturally reddish, so I tweaked the color cast by toning down the saturation and removing some red (by adding cyan) from the midtones and shadows until the limb looked more natural. The result: The thrasher in question now has a grayish face, less rufous, and very dark chest streaking. With the unnatural reddish removed, the bird looks much more like like a typical Long-billed Thrasher."   [The original photo was taken at 7:20 AM].

17) "I did as [comment (16) above] suggested. I decreased the red in PhotoShop, and a gray cheek contrasting with a rufous brown back become apparent where none is to be seen in the original photo. As I said in my original post, I feared that what I was seeing was an artifact of the photograph."

18) "I handle lots of thrashers and I used to believe back color was fairly diagnostic until I banded birds near Laredo. Those birds have as rich a rufous back as Brown's in East Texas. The normal deep brush country long-billed has a faded rufous back which is more likely due to sun exposure.

The main characteristics to look at in separating this species are:

• Lower mandible is typically mostly dark in long-billed and the rear half is pale or bone colored in the Brown.
• Lower mandible is somewhat curved in the long-billed while it is straight in the Brown.
• Eye color is not a good field character since this can change dramatically with light condition. Also, young thrashers have gray eyes which adds to the fun as they change into adult colors.
• Breast streaks are normally very dark brown surrounded by little buff for Long-billed and more rufous brown with much buff bordering on the Brown.
• Undertail coverts for Long-billed has fainted streaks and blotches versus none in the Brown.
• Primary extension beyond secondaries are shorter in the Long-billed than the Brown.

Where the species range overlap during winter this can be a challenging ID in the shade from very secretive birds. Photographs can very easily be deceiving when they represent 1/1000th of a second of a birds life."

But there is more ... Someone else took photos the same day!

Back to Thrasher ID

Copyright © 2008 Bert Frenz. All rights reserved.
Revised: October 29, 2012.