Specialty birds in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, TX - Part 7 - Curve-billed and Long-Billed Thrashers

This blog entry contains more photos resulting from my efforts to capture images of birds that, in the United States, are seen primarily in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas. The Curve-billed and Long-billed Thrashers are featured in this post.

The combination of the Olympus OM-1 camera and the 150-400 mm f/4.5 TC lens was used to capture all the images in this post.

Curve-billed Thrasher, Estero Llano Grande State Park, TX
Focal length: 500 mm, 1/3200 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 2500, Handheld

The curve-billed thrasher is grayish brown overall. It has a long tail, a curved bill, spots on the whitish upper chest, and a orange/yellow iris.


Curve-billed Thrashers, NABA International Butterfly Park, TX
Focal length: 250 mm, /1600 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 400, Handheld


The range of the Curve-billed Thrasher in the U.S. includes the western two thirds of Texas, Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, the southern half of New Mexico, northwest Oklahoma, southeastern Colorado and southwestern Kansas. The range extends southward to southern Mexico.


Long-billed Thrasher, NABA International Butterfly Park, TX
Focal length: 272 mm, 1/640 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 4000, Handheld

The Long-billed Thrasher has a long tail, curved beak, reddish-brown upperparts, heavy black streaking on the white underparts, and an orange iris.


Long-billed Thrasher, NABA International Butterfly Park, TX
Focal length: 335 mm, 1/2000 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 6400 , Handheld


Long-billed Thrashers are residents of southeast Texas and northeast Mexico.


David Sparks

I retired in 2005 after 40 years of research and teaching at the University of Alabama in Birmingham (24 years), the University of Pennsylvania (8 years) and the Baylor College of Medicine (8 years). Photography is my retirement hobby.

Nature photography, especially bird photography, combines a number of things that I really enjoy: bird-watching, being outdoors, photography, travel, messing about with computers, and learning new skills and concepts.  I now spend much of my time engaged in these activities.

David Sibley in the preface to The Sibley Guide to Birds wrote "Birds are beautiful, in spectacular as well as subtle ways; their colors, shapes, actions, and sounds are among the most aesthetically pleasing in nature."  My goal is to acquire images that capture the beauty and uniqueness of selected species as well as images that highlight the engaging behaviors the birds exhibit.