{"id":255,"date":"2005-10-06T08:04:00","date_gmt":"2005-10-06T15:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/fire\/2005\/10\/06\/curve-billed-thrashers\/"},"modified":"2006-07-27T10:44:44","modified_gmt":"2006-07-27T17:44:44","slug":"curve-billed-thrashers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/2005\/10\/06\/curve-billed-thrashers\/","title":{"rendered":"Curve-billed Thrashers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Curve-billed Thrashers (Toxostoma curvirostre)<\/a> are common here in Tucson, and they will happily visit birdseed feeders. They seem to prefer the small seeds like millet.<\/p>\n

\"Curve-billed<\/p>\n

Curve-billed Thrashers are perhaps one of the snoopiest birds I’ve ever seen. If I leave a door to my house or garage open, before long a Curve-billed Thrasher will be inside exploring around. It’s almost as if opening a door to my house creates a powerful vacuum that sucks them in. No car windows can be left open beyond the tiniest crack in my driveway or you’ll either find a Curve-billed Thrasher inside or the irrefutable evidence that one’s been there in the form of bird droppings all over your upholstery.<\/p>\n

I think that their illicit explorations must make them really nervous because I always seem to find an extraordinary number of bird droppings all over the place after one’s been in the house. Because of this, I like to call these birds the “snooper-poopers”.<\/p>\n

Not only are Curve-billed Thrashers snoopy, they are also highly intelligent. When I used to have a vegetable garden, no matter what I did, the Curve-billed Thrashers would always outsmart me and find a way in. These birds adore tomatoes, and to check them for ripeness, they’ll peck a small hole in every single one.<\/p>\n

Of course, intelligence doesn’t equal wisdom, so I used to find these foolishly clever birds tangled up in the bird netting that swathed my vegetable garden. Because I was concerned about them being hurt by the bird netting and I didn’t want to build a giant, ugly garden cage, I gave up entirely on vegetable gardening.<\/p>\n

Despite the problems that they’ve caused me, I really am extraordinarily fond of these inquisitive birds, and I usually have about 10 or so of them in my yard. They adore raw hamburger, and I was even able to get one of them to eat hamburger out of my hand once. They also diligently search the ground around my house for insects and spiders, and I greatly appreciate their natural pest control efforts.<\/p>\n

These sharp-eyed birds will use side to side sweeping motions of their curved bills to turn over rocks and leaf litter in their search for insects and spiders. I often hear them rustling about under my windows. Sometimes I’ll hear the rustling stop and I’ll get a funny feeling at the back of my neck like someone’s watching me. I’ll turn to look at the window and there one will be intently staring inside. And I know what that Curve-billed Thrasher is thinking; “I wonder what’s inside there? I’ll have to look for a way in!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Curve-billed Thrashers (Toxostoma curvirostre) are common here in Tucson, and they will happily visit birdseed feeders. They seem to prefer the small seeds like millet. Curve-billed Thrashers are perhaps one of the snoopiest birds I’ve ever seen. If I leave a door to my house or garage open, before long a Curve-billed Thrasher will be… Read More → <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arizona-birds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fireflyforest.net\/firefly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}