Participant Photo: Curve-billed Thrashers

These two have been hanging around our backyard since around September. I believe they may be first year birds from a pair that spent a lot of time with us in the past year. They were smaller then the two we’d had in the spring. The parent birds had started a nest in the cactus, but it’s on an alley, and may have been a decoy nest, because they abandoned it. These two actually eat on the ground under the feeders and even tried to eat from one of the tube feeders .The two in the spring never did that. They allow me to get within about 8-10 feet while I take their pictures!