Brown Thrasher

This photo was taken on 27 May 2015 in Dakota County, Minnesota. Brown Thrashers are found in eastern North America. Thrashers and mockingbirds belong to the family Mimidae, which recent DNA work demonstrates to be closely related to starlings.

Brown Thrashers have the largest song repertoires of all North American songbirds. Over 1100 song types are identified by ornithologists (Cavitt and Haas 2014). Ornithologists recognize two races of Brown Thrasher, the eastern Toxostoma rufum rufum and, in the western Great Plains, T. r. longicauda. Most Minnesota birds should be the eastern race, which can be identified by white, not buffy, wing bars.