#449 Sage Thrasher
There’s a big difference between “What else could it be?” and “That’s what it is!” When Kelsey Gonzalez spotted a roughly mockingbird-sized grayish bird with a streaked breast and a downward curved bill between Ponds 2 and 3 at San Joaquin this morning, I was really tempted to call it a Sage Thrasher. After all, nothing else even came close. American Pipit, seen earlier in the day, was probably the second best, but the bill was completely wrong for that. In fact, everything else even remotely possible with that streaked a breast had a straight bill, and the bill was the most distinctive feature. Still, Sage Thrasher would be a very unusual bird for that location, and one thing stood in the way: according to the field guide, the iris should be yellow, and this bird’s wasn’t. It wasn’t completely dark, but it was what I called a hazel brown.
Thank God for the Web! When I got home, I used Google image search to look for Sage Thrasher photos, and sure enough: even if the field guides don’t mention it, lots of Sage Thrashers have a noticeably hazel brown irises! That clinched it for me: it was a Sage Thrasher, life bird #449 and my 250th bird in California.
Even before the Sage Thrasher, it was a really good morning. I got there early, about 7:00 A.M., and left late. Overall I tallied 60 species including five new BGBY species:
- Canada Goose
- Gadwall
- American Wigeon
- Mallard
- Cinnamon Teal
- Northern Shoveler
- Green-winged Teal
- Redhead
- Ring-necked Duck
- Lesser Scaup
- Bufflehead
- Ruddy Duck
- Pied-billed Grebe
- Eared Grebe
- Western Grebe
- American White Pelican
- Brown Pelican
- Double-crested Cormorant
- Great Blue Heron
- Great Egret
- Snowy Egret
- Black-crowned Night-Heron
- Turkey Vulture
- Osprey
- White-tailed Kite
- Cooper’s Hawk
- Red-shouldered Hawk
- Red-tailed Hawk
- American Kestrel
- Peregrine Falcon
- American Coot
- Black-necked Stilt
- American Avocet
- Spotted Sandpiper
- Least Sandpiper
- Long-billed Dowitcher
- Ring-billed Gull
- Western Gull
- Herring Gull
- Mourning Dove
- Anna’s Hummingbird
- Nuttall’s Woodpecker
- Black Phoebe
- Say’s Phoebe
- American Crow
- Common Raven
- Tree Swallow
- Bushtit
- Marsh Wren
- Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
- Sage Thrasher
- American Pipit
- Yellow-rumped Warbler
- Common Yellowthroat
- Spotted Towhee
- Song Sparrow
- White-crowned Sparrow
- Red-winged Blackbird
- Great-tailed Grackle
- House Finch
