Mystery Bird: California Thrasher, Toxostoma redivivum

Haha. One of my favorite chaparral birds, the California Thrasher. I'm basing that on the magnificent (if sadly foreshortened) beak, the brown shading with the lighter throat, and the evident thrasher personality. :-)

John, I think you got it here... this morning I was trying to fit some member of the Turdidae into the image, looking for a true thrush, then I remembered that genetically the family Mimidae (and it's sister family Sturnidae) is closely related and the thrashers came into play- the recurved bill as well as the dark eyes (uncommon for thrashers) would set it apart as the California Thrasher, Toxostoma redivivum, but now I'm at work I can't load the image and so eliminating related species (LeConte's/Crissal Thrashers) will have to wait until later this evening!

Is it me or is one of the distinguishing features of the California Thrasher the fact that it is 600 feet tall?

HJ

Not quite about this bird, but it occurred to me this is probably the best forum I follow to help a neophyte identify a bird. I frankly don't know where to start at the big centers like Audobon, I do not understand how to navigate the categorizations to get even close without getting into a never-ending linear search.

Location: Puget Sound

A small group of 4 large water birds were startled into flight across the bow of the ferry. I only saw them for a few seconds, and only from the top. Black plumage but with large white tail-tops, shaped something like a Baboon's cheeks, in area about 1/3 of the total. Short necks, shorter than a goose or cormorant. Wings about the same size as geese. Generally not as delicate as a cormorant but not quite as heavy looking as a goose. I have never seen them before in the 15 years I've lived here.

My casual camera takes way too long to come up and acquire focus to capture something like this so no pics. (anyone got a good quick casual camera recommendation? But no bigger than a Lumix?)

Thanks all.

Upon further review... we can eliminate the Crissal Thrasher (Toxostoma crissale) which should have light eyes, and the Le Conte's Thrasher (Toxostoma lecontei) which should be greyer..

There are two subspecies accepted for the California Thrasher:

sonomae, southwestern US and northern California;

and redivivum, southern California (San Jaquin) and north-west Mexico (north-west Baja California)..

so we have either the nominate subspecies Toxostoma redivivum redivivum or

Bing's Toxostoma redivivum quadringentiquinquagintum (four hundred fifty cubits = 600 ft)

For reference:

Le Conte's Thrasher (Toxostoma lecontei)

Crissal Thrasher (Toxostoma crissale)

@ Gray Gaffer #4

Although the white is on their wings and not their tails, I wonder whether they were White-winged Scoters? Certainly they would be in Puget Sound this time of year, are smaller than geese, but relatively large ducks...

Check out the photo below to compare:

White-winged Scoters in flight

@ Gray Gaffer again

or perhaps they were in fact cormorants, but Pelagic Cormorants, which are smaller and more slender than the usual suspects along the west coast...

Pelagic Cormorant (Phalacrocorax pelagicus)

@David, thanks

Winged Scooters:

I'm pretty sure the white splashes were on the tail. The alignment was vertical and close together along the median, also as rearwards as they could be behind the wings, whereas the wing whites on the birds in the photo are centrally aligned horizontally and are well separated.

Pelagic Cormorants:

More like it, although I saw no color in the black of the non-white plumage, and the white markings were very sharply defined. Instead of Baboon cheeks I might describe them as lung-shaped. Also the neck did not seem as long. If I could see a photo from directly above I could match them better, since that was the orientation I had. I am very familiar with the usual cormorant shapes in the area, as there are several dozen who fish off the ferry dock dolphins and I have been tracking their population. These birds I saw are larger, whereas the pelagic is described as smaller, than the more common variety.

While googling around this I came across whatbird.com, which has an understandable interactive identification engine. It also led to the Pelagic Cormorant. But I still did not find a photo taken from above in flight. Since these birds fly close to the surface rather than high above (when fishing, anyway), so an above viewpoint should be pretty commonly experienced, I find that a little surprising.

But definitely much closer, thanks again.

well Gray, the only other suggestion I have would be a Brant Goose (Branta bernicla), especially the dark-bellied or "black" form which does winter along the Alaska/Washington/Oregon coast...

essentially uniformly dark grey-brown all over with a black head and neck, and with the flanks also looking dark in flight, and a distinct pure white undertail which would be seen from above:

3 Brant Geese in flight

8 Brant Geese in flight

@David - yes! Brandt's Cormorant is a close contender too but is larger and does not have the white tail part.

Thanks!