Baby Thrasher in Bush - Normal Behavior?

All day today as I worked in the garden the mother thrasher was fussing up a storm - at me. I saw her coming and going with worms in her beak so figured she had a nest nearby and didn't like me so close. Then late in the afternoon (4ish) I looked up from my weeding and found myself face to face with the cutest little baby bird. He was sitting in a spirea bush right in front of me and only about 2ft away. He sat so motionless that I thought at first he might be dead. Then I saw his sides move a little and new he was breathing.

I figured he was hungry and the momma bird was probably afraid to come so close to me to feed him, so after I took a few pics, I gathered my things and moved to the other side of the yard. After that I saw the mom come and go many times, picking up worms and bugs from the back part of my yard and from my neighbors yard and then flying over to the bush to feed him. Just before dark, I checked and he was still in that bush, curled and tucked up as if to sleep in the fork of the branches. His mom was still in the back part of the yard scratching around for worms.

So my question is, is this normal for the baby - fledgling, I suppose - to be in the bush alone like that? Is he safe there? His mom is still watching over him like a hawk and working hard to feed him. I hope he will be safe in the bush tonight.

Very attentive mom thrasher coming to feed baby.

mom thrasher again. this time she appears to have some kind of insect in her mouth and is watching me as I take pics of the baby (standing a few feed away from him).

another pic of baby

side view

That's certainly a dangerous time of their lives....I love Thrashers...sure hope this little one makes it OK. Mom is sure trying her best.

Aww how very sweet!! I see this alot of with the Robins when when a little one tumbles from the nest for some reason. The parents are always so frantic.
Looks like he has a good place to hide and the Moms doing a great job!
I hope he makes it! Great pics! Thanks for sharing them w/ us.

If he's still there tomorrow, should I 'adopt' him or leave him to his mom's care (and mind my own business)? Should I try to find the nest and put him back? There is no tree over the shrub where he's hiding. There is a small, dwarf magnolia nearby and in a corner where the house borders it on both sides. The mother kept going to that small tree (maybe 15ft tall) but I think she was just landing there for cover before going to baby. I didn't see a nest in the tree. I guess I'll do some research to see what kind of nest they make. For some reason I would expect it to be on or near the ground. I just don't think of them as tree dwellers. Will have to check.

I don't know about Thrashers, but some young fledges spend 3-4 days on the ground. Brewers Blackbirds do, and much as I dislike them, every year I pick up fledges from my yard and put them outside the fence in an open cage. If I don't my dachsies will get them. They also seem to be communal parents, 'cause when I put a babe in the cage I will have about 8 adults scolding and diving at me.

That's normal, the beginning of post-fledging behaviour aimed at independence for the fledgeling. The parents are clearly still feeding it, so it isn't lost or deserted. But it has to learn to cope with living in the great wide world, and this is the best way!

Its siblings will be similarly hidden in other bushes not too far away, but well spread out so that if a predator finds one, it won't find the others.

Next stage is it will start finding its own food to supplement what the parents bring.

Resin

Thanks, Resin.

That makes a lot of sense. I was wondering why I didn't see any of the other baby birds around. I didn't want to interfere but on the other hand didn't want to leave it to die if it needed help. Best I should mind my own business. It's mom seems quite capable and clearly knows more about raising baby birds than I do. I tried to give her some roasted meal worms for the baby (I put them on a dish at the back of the yard where she was looking for insects - far away from baby), but while she eyed them with some interest, she ultimately rejected them in favor of fresh food. No fast food for her family.

It was very interesting to observe (from a distance) the mom feeding the baby.

In my research online I learned (Cornell lab) that (1) while defending the young, the parents will often strike people and dogs hard enough to draw blood, (2) they are related to and make sounds like mocking birds, and (3) they are on the decline throughout their range.

I had noticed that the adult bird(s) were quite clear in telling me to keep my distance. I knew that mockingbirds would attack people, so had put my little dog back indoors when the bird started acting up. Although I didn't mention it (didn't want to sound silly) I had noticed that the adult (I figured it was the mom but could have been the dad) was making a variety of different calls similar to a mockingbird (including one that sounded like a person laughing). Had I not seen the thrasher in the tree I would have sworn it was a mockingbird I was hearing.

Thanks for the info, Everyone. I'm happy to have the Brown Thrashers nesting in my backyard cottage garden and will leave the babies to their mother's care.

I'd heard they were declining too, with high domestic cat numbers being suggested as a major culprit. Being ground-feeding birds, they are at much higher risk from cats than many other birds are. Promote the Cats Indoors campaign!

A dish of live mealworms will be much more liked!

Resin

A bit of an update on the story:

The next morning when my little dog went out back for his morning romp, the mother thrasher appeared almost immediately on a low branch beside the back door. Out of curiosity, I checked the spirea to see if the baby bird was still there. He was not, nor did I see him anywhere nearby - realize, however, that I had been sitting face to face with the baby bird that 1st day for an hour or more before I noticed him. There were no feathers on the ground around or near the shrub, no sign of a struggle having occurred there, but I realize that some predators could have taken the baby without leaving 'tracks' or feathers.

For the rest of the week, the mother bird appeared to be following me around the yard. Everywhere I went, there she was. I figured her continued monitoring of the yard to be a good sign that she still had babies in the area. I didn't get any live worms yet, just no time right now, but seeing that the roasted meal worms were gone, I replaced them.

Today I had the fabulous opportunity to watch her apparently teaching one of the babies how to find food. I was out tending my garden when I saw her near me as usual. A few minutes later I saw the 2nd bird join her on the ground. I doubt I would have recognized the baby had it not been for his stump of a tail, something I had noticed when photographing him in the bush last Sunday. Otherwise, he seems almost grown, almost the same as mom, although his color is a bit more muted still. She stopped in a nearby flower bed to thrash the ground while the youngster looked on. I gathered she was demonstrating how it's done. A moment later she withdrew an insect of some kind, something grub-like, and placed it into the youngsters open beak. I snapped a few pics. While I got pics of them together, I missed the feeding moment. Then they headed off across the small strip of lawn in search of more food. It was an interesting experience and education for me.

I don't have the pics on this laptop but will post later.

Glad to hear everythings going well! Thanks for the update, I look forward to the pics!

Just last year I picked up a baby thrasher thinking he was hurt or something. He screamed for help and within 3 seconds, no joke, their were at least 6 blue jays, both thrashers, cardinals and any other bird available screaming and bombing me. I put him back and ran for my life. It was great!

LOL!

Oh, that is too, too funny, wormfood!

I sure am glad I didn't decide to 'help' the little guy. I read that thrasher parents have been known to hit people hard enough to draw blood when protecting the young. Sounds like you got off light with just the warning.

Here are pics from a few days or so later. Appears to be Mom feeding Jr (short, stubby, tail) and showing him how to find food. This 1st one is just the two of them running across the yard on the way to find food. Seems like she had him stashed in a rose bush. She had some difficulty persuading him to go out into the open and run across the lawn with her like that. Notice how far he is lagging behind.

Here they are seconds after I missed the shot of her finding a 'worm' of some kind and feeding it to him.

In this shot it seems they've spotted me and are getting the heck out of there.

Here they are heading out onto the front lawn. Again Jr seems hesitant to follow. (Mom is partially obscured by the bush on the left. Jr is the one in full view.) After this they were out of view behind the shrubs so I let them be and went back to photographing my iris, but it was interesting to observe this interaction.

How cute! Thanks for the picture update scutler!

Glad the baby made it OK....I love the Brown Thrashers, wish I would see them more often here.

well, i know thrashers like to nest in thick shrubs. my fiance' saw that when he was working in the yard so i looked it up online and found it was a thrasher. i have cute pictures of the chicks on my cell phone. if there was only 1 chick, maybe the other ones didn't survive.

Sugarpop,

There was no nest in the shrub, just one youngster standing on a small branch alone inside the shrub. The youngster was only there for a few hours that one day. I really think Resin (above) had the right explanation as to what the young bird was doing there in the shrub alone that day.

Regarding Brown Thrashers' nests, I was able to watch a BT pair build a nest on the edge of my yard. It was low, less than 5 feet high, in a brushy bush. Even knowing where it was did not make it easy to spot it visually. Resin is right, not only are they ground-feeding making them vulnerable to cats, but their nests are also low and vulnerable.

DreamofSpring,

yeah, thats true, i think resin is right about that. so i guess it good the little fledglings are trying to get on their way. My fiance' has been watching the BT chicks in their nest (haven't seen any cats around so thats good). they seem to be a happy family, except for when you get too close. lol. i wish i could send the cute picture of the chicks with their yellow beaks open but its on my cell phone.

Can't you download the picture to the computer?

My phones all came with a USB cable and CD for connecting to the computer to download/upload things between the 2. It's really easy to do. Usually, you just connect them via the cable and install the software from the CD. After that it's easy. The phone usually shows up on your computer (under My Computer on Windows) as if it were another disk drive, DVD player, etc. When you find the phone (in MyComputer on Windows), you click on it to see the pictures. Then you just drag the picture(s) from the phone icon to your C drive (or D drive or whatever your main computer drive is named) or, to make the pics easy to find, you can just drag them onto the computer desktop for now. If the pictures are jpg's then you can easily post them online.

i'm sure i could do that...i'll have to wait until my fiance' Josh gets home, i'm sure he could get it done alot faster than me. haha.

It must be nice to have someone else to whom you can delegate such things. I am a software engineer. If I ask one of my friends to do something of the sort for me I get the same tired old, "but, Cheryl, you're a software engineer. You know how to do that yourself." Sometimes, honestly, I really miss the old days, back when I could just feign lack of knowledge and get some big, strong guy to do these things for me. LOL.

yeah. haha. well, josh is kind of a computer geek, so i guess he's the same as you without the degree. lol. i just don't know where all the stuff is that i need to transfer the pictures. i'll ask him when he gets home

I often don't know these things either, but all of my guys know that I'm quite capable of figuring it out, so I can't get away with trying to delegate those tasks - and believe me, sometimes I really wish I could. I'm not kidding when I say that it can be a drag. I was asking one of my friends to do something of the sort for me recently - because I just didn't want to fool with it. But I got that same old tired answer to which I've become so accustomed. I kid you not, sometimes, times like that, I remember the 'old days' (pre-degree) so fondly. He used to do these things for me - which was much, much easier for me.

I really wasn't kidding. I would love to be able to give those kinds of tasks to someone else.

I've a pair of Brown Thrashers that chose to nest here last year -- in side this shrub, then again this year. The first brood fledged, a couple weeks ago. Then I saw another pair built another nest on my rose arbor which is roughly 8 feet off the ground.

Currently I think they're incubating, for I saw two birds came and go. But, this one came and sat there a while and didn't budge. They're very aware of my presence it seems.

This message was edited May 25, 2010 4:07 PM

This one is taking a little time out to preen itself. A 'me time' moment.

yeah, apparently my phone is, um, oldschool. haha. i can't put the pictures on the computer. sad, they are really cute

So sorry, Sugarpop,

I really was looking forward to seeing them. Do you know the reason why you can't put them on the computer? Just curious. Can you email from your phone? Maybe you could email them to yourself to get them on the computer. If the photos are the wrong type, something other than jpg, you could probably find a program online to convert them. If the phone can't connect to the computer or send email, that might be a problem. Sorry.

i've just discovered birds with nests inside of my hanging ferns.....and there's eggs in each one. i think they are thrashers.

Great news! Hope they do well-sorry if the ferns have to be sacrificed.

This one liked the mealworms. I was kind of surprised it was able to negotiate that little feeder!