Chasing a Louisiana Sage Thrasher
Today, Sunday, October 22nd, Claire Daigle Thomas found a Sage Thrasher in Madisonville, Louisiana. Once accepted it will be the fourteenth record of this western mimid for Louisiana and only the second for the southeastern part of the state. Sage Thrashers are small for a thrasher, owing mostly to their relatively short tails and short, thin bills. They sport a brownish gray on the upperparts and their whitish underparts are heavily marked in crisp blackish streaks. Like many thrashers, they have bright orange eyes frequently sporting a quizzical expression. When not singing, they tend to be hard to see, as they spend most of their time on the ground running in between sage bushes. The Sage Thrasher’s long, jumbling song is one of my favorite sounds of the sage scrublands of the western US. Sage Thrashers don’t usually occur east of central Texas, but they do have a propensity for vagrancy with records in most eastern states. I’d previously chased and missed one in Cameron Parish two years ago, a bird James Smithers found that did not linger. Before that, Louisiana’s last record was in 2018.
Clair was birding the Tchefuncte River mouth, a marshy stretch of road along the Tchefuncte River where it flows into Lake Pontchartrain, when she found the bird was in the parking lot of T Rivers Bar and Grill (one of my friends bartends here; she’ll be disappointed to know that my first visit to her bar was to see a bird). She got the word out on Facebook and my friend Jack forwarded it to the state text thread.
The mouth of the Tchefuncte River
Shortly after we heard of the bird a carpool was organized and we were off. I met Van, who drove, as well as Kevin and Esme, at state building near the interstate. Esme and I had carpooled together when we missed the last Sage Thrasher, something that we were hoping to wipe off the record with this newest bird. Van needed the bird for his “Birds photographed in Louisiana” list, which is nearing 400. It wouldn’t be his first Sage Thrasher for the state, though, as Van collected three of the previous 13 records. We talked of all things birding and field work, from birder drama to past vagrant records to discussing grad school, and the hour drive flew by.
We arrived to a packed parking lot at the T Rivers Bar and Grill. Jack had seen the bird already and gone back towards Baton Rouge, reporting to us that a cat was chasing it around the parking lot, so we better get there fast. We found neither the cat nor the bird at first but instead were greeted by a singing Boat-tailed Grackle and a set-list from local band SUPERCHARGER blaring from the bar. I wandered off to some trees across the canal and everyone else fanned out in the parking lot.
It was only a few minutes before Van found the bird hopping between two trucks. Stoked, we all got crushing photos of the birds hopping on the ground and got some laughs and questions from bar-goers. Everyone was friendly and they helped us relocate the bird when it would fly to other parts of the parking lot. At one point, it did get very close to the bar cat, and an employee came out to wrangle the cat away from the thrasher.
We followed the thrasher around the parking lot for a while, all amused at the parking lot celebrity, and eventually pulled ourselves away. It might be the best looks I’ve ever had at a Sage Thrasher, even out west where they are common. We were all content and glad to have made the drive, and spirits were high as we headed back to town to enjoy our Sunday evening.
Classic Sage Thrasher habitat