By Anne Schmauss

For The New Mexican

I sometimes expect beautiful birds to sing beautiful songs and dull birds to be loud and brash. The rather dull-colored curve-billed thrasher often surprises me with his wide variety of beautiful melodies. This large gray bird with the long curved bill can make rather harsh sounds but is also capable of bright whistles and lovely tunes.

This member of the Mimid family, like his cousin the mockingbird, is known for possessing a large musical repertoire. Curve-billed thrashers are year-round residents of the Santa Fe area as well as much of the Southwest and Mexico.

Male curve-billed thrashers do most of the singing, and talented singers are especially popular with the ladies. Females seem to like a wide variety of tunes — so, the more songs and sounds a male can make, the better his chances. Some evidence suggests that because older males tend to know more songs they are often the most sought after. One way to identify a young curve-billed thrasher is by his shorter bill. It takes time to grow a nice long, curved bill.

While courting, the male curve-billed follows the female while singing softly. They are monogamous and usually stay paired for several years. They have two to three broods during the summer and stay together year-round near the nesting sight. In other words, they tend to be home bodies. Curve-billed thrashers love to build their nests in cholla cactus. Pretty smart! If I were a predator I might think twice about going after eggs hidden deep in a prickly cactus.

Babies start life by learning the songs their parents sing. At only a few days old, curve-billed thrasher chicks are able to imitate their parents' songs.

You'll often see curve-billed thrashers eating seed at your feeder or from a seed cylinder. They like to eat cactus flowers and sometimes probe their long bill up to two inches into the ground looking for insects. They also aggressively sweep though leaves and leaf liter looking for bugs and seeds, sometimes picking up small sticks with their bill and tossing them to the side. It's thought that thrashers may get their name from this "thrashing" behavior. This raucous sweeping/thrashing/digging spectacle often gives us a good opportunity to observe this sometimes secretive bird.

Populations of curve-billed thrashers, as well as other desert thrashers, have declined in recent years. Although the reason for this decline is not known for sure, it's thought that expanding development in metropolitan areas of the Southwest and conversion of desert to agricultural land are major causes of their habitat loss.

This summer enjoy watching and listening to your local songster, the curve-billed thrasher.

Anne Schmauss is the co-owner of Wild Birds Unlimited in Santa Fe. She is the co-author, with her sisters, of For the Birds: A Month by Month Guide to Attracting Birds to Your Backyard.

She also writes for Birds and Blooms magazine.