Déjà Vu All Over Again…by Brad Marks

First off, we want to send our wishes out to our Texas based family, friends and others that were recently impacted by Hurricane Beryl. Texas is our home away from home and it is disheartening to hear about them experiencing another severe weather related event. Over the years, we have barely escaped crippling ice storms, hunkered down for a wicked tropical thunderstorm and witnessed the destruction at Rockport from Hurricane Harvey (link here). You are all proven Texas Strong! Locally I am going stir crazy waiting out the final days before the big race. Been getting some Beryl fallout as it has been raining extensively here the last couple of days and likely to continue up through the race. This race is already a “sufferfest in the valleys of death” – adding in a mudfest isn’t going to help my spirits any (link here). While I make tweaks to the final race plan, Brad is going to take you back to California…no wait, Vegas…so confused ha.

Take it away Brad…

Ever have the feeling you’ve done something before?  Or been someplace before that you’ve never been to.  That sort of happened to me when I was reviewing photos from a recent trip to Las Vegas and points nearby.

This story, and the bird, are nearly identical to another one, except that all of the facts have been changed.  The venue is different.  The nearby airport is different.  The bird is different (mostly).  The desert setting is nearly identical.  The lighting conditions are nearly identical with the featured bird sitting high on a twig like before.  The camera body is the same.  The lens is different.  Jan took all of the photos of both birds.  The fact that I was nowhere nearby is identical.  In fact, I didn’t even know Jan photographed this bird, too, until I reviewed the photos at home, just like last time.

Wait a minute.  Is he just re-publishing the story about the California Thrasher (here) and simply retitling it?  Has Wildlife Intrigued gone bonkers?  Well, sort of. See if you can spot the differences from this photo.

Jan and I were, can you guess, on vacation again.  Last time we were in California at the Upper Newport Bay Nature Preserve in California.  This time we were at the Clark County Wetlands Park just outside Las Vegas, Nevada. 

As is the custom, once we park the car, I assemble Jan’s camera first.  This was the first trip with her brand-new Nikon 200-500mm lens.  (Wildlife Intrigued uses exclusively Nikon equipment.  If anyone from Nikon is reading this and wishes to sponsor the Wildlife Intrigued blog, please contact our Legal department.)  I knew she was itching to try it out on birds.  Once the lens was on the camera, I handed it over and got out of the way.  For some reason, it took me a few extra minutes to assemble my camera this time.  Maybe because we traveled by air and had to use two camera bags with bits scattered all over.  It could also have been that I was tangled up in my new Black Rapid strap (not their fault).  After a minute of untying nylon webbing knots, I was ready to go.  In the meantime, Jan was busy capturing this feathered friend.

I wandered across the empty parking lot to the first trail into the brush.  Literally, as my feet hit the well-groomed trail, my mobile phone rang.  I didn’t recognize the phone number (it wasn’t in my contact list) and was going to let it go to voicemail.  But remembering I’d had a call from that area code a few days before, with a similar number that was legit, I answered it.  It was the hotel we had booked to observe the eclipse (booked 18 months prior to the eclipse).  The little town near the center line of totality for the April 2024 eclipse had been hit by a tornado.  About the only buildings left standing in town were our hotel and the school gymnasium.  As tragic as that is, the senior center and senior housing were completely leveled.  The hotel was going to house the newly homeless seniors and needed my room.  After a bit of teeth gnashing, I realized I really had no choice and let the room go.  It’s now scramble time for finding a spot to view the eclipse.  At the time, the eclipse was less than two weeks away, which meant that finding a hotel room anywhere near the centerline of the eclipse, without costing my firstborn child, would be impossible.  (See the story Twice in a Lifetime for the result of the search if you are curious.)

Just as I hung up the phone Jan came back and wanted to show me a bird.  As we walked up to the twig where it was sitting, it had chosen to skedaddle.  (I really didn’t get to see it until later.)

Hit the jump to find out today’s feathered friend.

It’s a Crissal Thrasher (Toxostoma crissale), another +1 for Jan and I.  At first glance, you can see where I thought it was the California Thrasher.  However, a quick trip to All About Birds shows that their respective territories do not overlap.  We were near the northwest extreme of the Crissal’s range.  Their “cousin” the California Thrasher, is only along the Pacific coast and a bit on the east side of the Imperial Valley.  I used the word “cousin,” but the territories of these two birds do not appear to overlap today.

The Crissal has a mostly grey color palette, where the California version has a brown-ish color scheme.    The Crissal doesn’t have as prominent of an “eyebrow” either.  The curve of the bill is nearly identical.  They both hold their tails the same way.  They both like to sit up high on exposed twigs with overly bright backgrounds when photographers are around.  I made up that last one, but the data gathered from our photos suggest that it’s true.

The Crissal has a yellow eye, the California version has mostly black eyes.

Both thrashers are very similar in size and live in areas covered in brush or shrubs and tend to be in canyons, creek beds or foothills.  The Crissal eats available insects and forages mostly on the ground, very similar to the California.

The Harry Reid Airport (formerly known as McCarran Airport) in Las Vegas is close by, but nowhere near as close as John Wayne Airport was to the Upper Newport Bay Nature Preserve in California.  I could hear the planes, but wasn’t deafened by them since they were not flying directly overhead.

Crissal Thrashers use twigs, plant stems, hair, grass, etc., (but no poison oak like the California Thrasher) to build their nests securely in the brush several feet from the ground.  Crissal parents share incubating duties, raising 1-4 chicks per season.  But once the younglings are thought to be sufficiently capable, the parents chase them out of the nest and out of the immediate area.  Like the California, Crissal Thrashers are not migratory and tend to stick around for most of the year.

A mated pair will stay together year-round and defend large territories.  The Crissal, like the California thrasher, are not necessarily anti-social, they just don’t like other birds competing for their resources.

Now you may understand why I mentioned earlier that this story is nearly identical to the one about the California Thrasher.  Except the facts are completely different.  Jan, myself, and the cameras were the only constants.

Thank you for reading.  If you want to see more Crissal Thrasher photos, please visit here.

Credits

Thanks again to Jan and Allyson (with Associate editor Elfie below) for proofreading and editing.  Thanks to Jan for some (nearly all) the photos in this article.