THE CURVE-BILLED THRASHER
by
Walter L. Meagher
Photos by Wayne Colony
My eye is drawn to the bill annealed and bent on a mold. It must be dangerous, able to snatch a lizard, definitely not a vegetarian. The orange ring around the black iris is a wee bit unnerving. The Curve-billed Thrasher performs no vocal antics like its cousin, the Eastern Mockingbird, although both are members of the same family (Mimics; in Latin, Mimidae). Armament and intimidation aside, when courting, the male Curve-billed Thrasher follows the female while ‘singing a soft song’. They share nesting duties, except only the female sits on the eggs all through the night
The curved bill serves as a rake. Often in its habitat of open brushland with a dotting of mesquite, low spiny shrubs and small trees - El Charco is ideal habitat as is all the Central Plateau - you may see the Curve-billed Thrasher scratching leaves beneath any one of these woody plants. So vigorously does it work, that leaves and twigs leap and bound off the ground exposing the many edibles in its diet: insect larvae, centipedes, spiders and more - hence ‘thrasher’, its apellido. At times, the bird uses its bill to dig for food, bracing itself with its long tail, uncovering an organism that only moments ago felt secure in confinement beneath the firm earth. This is the point about birds: they are feathered tool-kits.
The Curve-billed Thrasher is fit for many tasks, but what do we find it doing on the garambullo in Wayne’s photograph? If there were a contest to name the most esteemed tall cactus plant growing wild in San Miguel, the winner, surely, would be garambullo. The lover of neoclassical architecture, with emphasis on balanced proportions, might admire the plant’s structural symmetry. Its many stems point skyward to form an elaborate candelabra. The spines are stiff and sharp but the fruits, unlike most local cacti, are unarmed, having neither spines nor barbed hairs. Notice that the flowers are borne along the vertical ribs of the plant. Has the thrasher, in the photograph, come for postre, having this morning already perhaps had a centipede and a plenty of ants? The mature fruits are round, purple, sweet and delicious and the thrasher knows this as well as we do.