Family: Mimidae, Mockingbirds and Thrashers view all from this family

Description 8 1/2" (22 cm). Brown-gray above, buff below with conspicuous black streaks; bill strongly curved; tail relatively short with white patches in corners; 2 white wing bars (often worn away by spring).

Habitat Dry sagebrush plains and arid areas such as the floors of rocky canyons; winters in dense thickets and lowland scrub.

Nesting 4 or 5 brown-blotched, blue-green eggs in a stick nest lined with rootlets and grass, and often with fur or feathers, and placed in a bush, usually with thorns.

Range Breeds from southern interior British Columbia, central Idaho, and southern Montana south to southern inland California, southern Nevada, New Mexico, and western Oklahoma; also in an isolated area in southwestern Saskatchewan. Winters chiefly in southwestern states and southern Texas.

Voice   Continuous sweet warble without the broken-up phrases of the more familiar Brown Thrasher. The common call note is a deep chuck.

Discussion A good songster from a conspicuous perch or in flight, the Sage Thrasher is a less repetitious mimic than the Northern Mockingbird. It seems to be a cross between a thrasher and a mockingbird, but is considered more closely related to the latter. The flicking of its tail and its general appearance, except for the streaked underparts, recall a mockingbird, but its generally terrestrial habits, and particularly its habit of diving into a bush for cover when alarmed, are reminiscent of a thrasher. It feasts on fruits and vegetables in gardens of desert towns, but also eats many damaging insects in alfalfa fields near its sagebrush nesting area.