Brown Thrasher / Toxostoma rufum - a 'lifer'

Back to posting after missing yesterday. I was so absolutely tired the previous evening, that I just didn't manage to find and edit photos to post early yesterday morning. I know part of the reason is lack of sleep, but I have felt overwhelmingly tired since getting back from Trinidad & Tobago. I need to get more sleep and then see if that helps. If not, I guess it is always possible that I picked up something during our trip.

Despite this very distant, cropped image, I wanted to add this photo of a Brown Thrasher, as this bird was a lifer for me. It was seen yesterday, 17 June 2017, when five of us went east of the city for the day, to visit our friend, Shirley, at her seasonal trailer.

Most of our birding was done at and near Shirley's trailer site, including seeing a wonderful Great Horned Owl family, two Killdeer and their nests, a Baltimore Oriole, and (finally!) a Brown Thrasher. I had wanted to see a Thrasher for a number of years, so yesterday's sighting was a real treat.

"It can be tricky to glimpse a Brown Thrasher in a tangled mass of shrubbery, and once you do you may wonder how such a boldly patterned, gangly bird could stay so hidden. Brown Thrashers wear a somewhat severe expression thanks to their heavy, slightly downcurved bill and staring yellow eyes, and they are the only thrasher species east of Texas. Brown Thrashers are exuberant singers, with one of the largest repertoires of any North American songbird." From AllABoutBirds.

www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Brown_Thrasher/id

We were so happy to be able to see the Great Horned Owl family - three owlets and both adults. There had been a fourth owlet, but it died recently. When I was posting a photo of two of the owlets this morning, I realized that one youngster was clutching a small bird in its talons!

As we were walking around the grounds, two ladies stopped us and showed us some baby birds that they had had to remove from the engine of their vehicle, as they needed to drive. They wondered if we knew what kind of birds they were, but we were unable to help. I posted a photo of them this morning, just in case someone can ID them. The ladies had a bird house that they were going to put the babies into, hoping that the parents would hear them calling and be able to continue feeding them.

Thank you so much, Shirley, for inviting us all out to visit you while you were there for the weekend! It was such a pleasure to see some of "your" birds that you enjoy so much. Such a great variety of species! Wow, what a lunch we had, sitting at a table under the Tree Swallow tree, with a very vocal American Robin just a few feet away and a pair of busy Tree Swallows flying back and forth with food for their babies. How DO birds manage to sing non-stop like this Robin?! Hot chili made by Shirley, and a whole array of delicious salads and desserts left me feeling full till the early evening.

Many thanks, Anne B, for picking up three of us and for driving us east across the prairies. Hugely appreciated!