Anguilla Backyard Birding - Part 4
Pearly-eyed Thrasher
Perhaps the most infamous of the Lesser Antilles Restricted Range Species is the Pearly-eyed Thrasher. Known for its loud call and uncanny ability to remove a French fry from an unsuspecting tourist’s plate in the wink of an eye, this bird is not a fan favorite.
In addition to being a food pest, the Pearly-eyed Thrasher is a predator of a variety of other species of birds. No hummingbird nest is immune to attacks on both eggs and chicks by this Thrasher. Bananaquits are not off limits either, but their nest design makes it tougher to get to the eggs.
This bird is brown overall with a long tail and distinctive white eye ring. At 10 inches in length, it is one of our largest species.
Although I don’t see their nests frequently, as they tend to lay in building rafters or rock cavities, Thrashers generally lay 2 to 4 greenish-blue eggs. They are fierce nest defenders. Make no mistake - if you come too close to the nest, you will be attacked!
The female is primarily responsible for incubation over 14 days. Chicks remain in the nest for approximately 21 days and are fed by both parents.
Juveniles and chicks lack the distinctive white eye ring making them easily identifiable.
If you find the raucous adult vocalizations annoying, the constant calls from newly fledged birds will not make you happy either!
The good news is that they start reproduction at about nine months making the juvenile stage brief.
The Thrasher diet includes fruits, seeds, berries, and invertebrates. As you can see from the above photograph, bugs are not off-limits at feeding time.
For all of their shortcomings, the Pearly-eyed Thrasher is a critical part of the terrestrial bird population in Anguilla and is responsible for seed dispersal.
Significant research has been conducted on this species and is available through the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Birds of the World site.
I hope you will enjoy a few moments with this fun bird via my YouTube companion reel.
Have you encountered the Pearly-eyed Thrasher? If the answer is yes, I would love to hear your thoughts.
Recommended Reading:
I found this substack post a fun read. I think you might too.
Check out
and their latest post - The record-breaking bird that started the Guinness Book of World Records. The author has another great post on the owls of Harry Potter!