FIRST ARIZONA CLAY-COLORED THRUSH RECORD - Arizona Birds
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Arizona Birds - Journal of Arizona Field Ornithologists Volume 2021
FIRST ARIZONA CLAY-COLORED THRUSH RECORD
MAUREEN BLACKFORD, MBLACKFORD@FASTMAIL.COM
SALLY JOHNSEN, EMPIDONAX@NETZERO.NET
DIANE RAND, DIANEMRAND@GMAIL.COM
We found a Clay-colored Thrush (Turdus grayi) at Buenos Aires
National Wildlife Refuge (BANWR)-Arivaca Cienega in Pima County,
Arizona on 15 May 2020. The bird remained in that area until 26 May
2020 (Figure 1). The Arizona Bird Committee (ABC) has accepted this
as a state record (G. Rosenberg, ABC secretary, pers. comm.).
At 0626 we arrived at Arivaca Cienega, which is about 96 km
south of Tucson. As soon as we got out of the car, we heard a
song we didn’t recognize. We walked into the grassland area until
we reached the end of the concrete trail near a small pond. The
singing bird was nestled in a netleaf hackberry (Celtis reticulata) on
the south side of this pond. Its song was loud and melodic with a
descending pattern followed by 3 even notes, the pattern changing
intermittently (Blackford, Johnsen, and Rand 2020).
Figure 1. Clay-colored Thrush, 15 May 2020.
Photo by Maureen Blackford
We waited until the unidentified bird finally flew out and sat on
a branch of a cottonwood tree (Populus fremontii), where we could see it. It was visible for about 8 minutes before a
Cassin’s Kingbird (Tyrannus vociferans) flew at it, chasing it back into the thicket.
By process of elimination, we decided the song was “thrush-like”. The bird was the size of an American Robin (Turdus
migratorius) and had a pale throat with rufous coloration along the flanks of its lower belly. Its bill was yellow green;
the eyes had red irises with dark pupils. The back was dull brown, and the cap, wings, and tail were slightly darker. Its
legs were pinkish/flesh-colored, caked in mud. We saw no visible streaking on the throat.
We considered Clay-colored Thrush, but the drawings and pictures on our phone apps (iBird Pro Guide 2020, Sibley
Birds V2 2020) showed that species to be darker with a streaked neck and darker bill. We discounted the following
species due to body and eye coloration: American Robin, White-throated Thrush (T. assimilis) and Rufous-backed Robin
(T. rufopalliatus) from Mexico, and Pale-vented Thrush (T. obsoletus) from Central America.
We returned to the pond at 0950, where the bird was still singing. However, it did not show itself again. Once home,
we compared our photos to 3 reference books (Sibley 2001, Van Perlo 2006, Howell and Webb 1999) and Internet
images (Bird Watchers Digest 2020). We firmly identified it as a Clay-colored Thrush.
The habitat supported this identification. Ample winter and spring rains were evident in both the pond and the
riparian area of the Cienega. Several acres of the riparian area held water and Arivaca Creek was running. The pond
was at one-fourth water capacity, with a muddy shoreline. Clay-colored Thrushes are drawn to areas near fresh water
with muddy edges as well as wetlands. They are also known to inhabit urban parks and shrubby, wooded areas (Brush
and Conway 2012).
Confident of the identification, we emailed Andrew Core, the Southeast Arizona Rare Bird Alert Compiler of Tucson, of
our finding, including photos of the bird. He placed a posting on the Arizona Birding Facebook page and the Arizona/
New Mexico listserv stating the photos supported the ID as Clay-colored Thrush.
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Arizona Birds - Journal of Arizona Field Ornithologists Volume 2021
Several birders immediately went to Arivaca Cienega, and over the next 11 days scores of birders saw the thrush. It
was most frequently seen around the cottonwood trees and willows near the same pond beside the fork in the trail.
Observers usually heard the thrush before seeing it (eBird 2020), and its distinctive song was unmistakable (O’Donnell
2020).
Most sightings were in early morning and evening, beginning between 0520 and 0800 and again around 1530 to
1730. Just a few observers reported sightings in the late morning (eBird 2020). The bird was not always easily found;
one birder spent more than 11 hours at the Cienega pond waiting to see it (Holland 2020).
When some birders missed seeing the thrush at the Cienega pond 18 May 2020, others saw it near Ruby Road.
Initially found at 1735, it was singing near a little pond south of the Arivaca Road junction. Other birders observed
evening appearances of the thrush in Arivaca, near the farmers’ market and across the street from St. Ferdinand
Catholic Church in mesquites, junipers, and green grasses. These reports indicated infrequent movements away from
the Cienega to locations less than 1.0 km northwest of the original site. Again, the bird’s song drew attention to its
location (eBird 2020).
With high temperatures of 30 °C-35 °C through the month of
May, the pond started to dry up. Several birders observed the
Clay-colored Thrush jumping down to small puddles in the pond
basin and grabbing worms (Olmstead 2020). Three times during
an hour and 35 minutes the bird went down to the mud puddle
either for a drink or to forage in the mud for worms (Figure 2;
McCabe 2020). A few times other birds tangled with the thrush
and caused it to fly. The last sighting was 26 May 2020 when the
pond had completely dried (Dougill 2020).
The Clay-colored Thrush is primarily distributed around the Gulf
of Mexico from southern Texas, eastern Mexico, and throughout
Central America into Colombia and Venezuela. Previously Figure 2. Clay-colored Thrush feeding on worms, 16
known as the Clay-colored Robin, the first record north of the May 2020. Photo by Janine McCabe
Mexican border was 10-17 March 1940 near Brownsville, Texas
(Oberholser and Kincaid 1974). In 1998 the Texas Bird Records Committee removed the species from its review list,
with 51 records archived by that time (Brush and Conway 2012). In 1999, the Clay-colored Thrush had spread westward
from the Lower Rio Grande Valley along the Rio Grande River, with numerous sightings in the Laredo area. Studies of
nesting sites and banding indicate this species has expanded along the Texas border (Brush and Conway 2012). West
Texas sightings of Clay-colored Thrush in Big Bend National Park began occurring in 2005 (Hewetson 2005). The most
recent report was 12 July 2016 (Marjamaa 2016).
Only a couple of northern sightings have been reported. One was 22 November 2001 at Horseshoe Springs near La
Cueva, New Mexico in the Valles Caldera National Preserve, 97 km northwest of Los Alamos. This is the only sighting
reported from New Mexico (Williams 2007). The other was a report 19 May 2012 from El Dorado, Texas, 319 km west of
Austin (Packer 2012). There are no subsequent reports of sightings at these northern locations.
The BANWR Clay-colored Thrush is the first to be accepted as an Arizona state record. The ABC did not accept
a previous report from Portal 21 June 2015. From a single photograph, the ABC concluded that it was correctly
identified but thought the bird might not have occurred naturally. The date was outside the species’ normal period of
vagrancy in Texas. The committee noted, however, that if additional Clay-colored Thrushes appeared in Arizona, the
Portal report would likely be reconsidered (Rosenberg et al. 2019).
Page 2Arizona Birds - Journal of Arizona Field Ornithologists Volume 2021
Does this Arizona sighting of the Clay-colored Thrush in May 2020 and the one in Portal in June 2015 reflect a farther
westward movement or a chance encounter? That remains to be seen.
ACKOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank Timothy Brush for supplying us with articles he has written on the nesting and distribution
of the Clay-colored Thrush in Texas. We would like to thank Andrew Core for his assistance in disseminating the
notification of the sighting. We would like to thank Doug Jenness, Chris Benesh, Rich Hoyer, and Rick Wright for their
reviews and editing of this article.
LITERATURE CITED
Bird Watcher’s Digest. 2020. Clay-colored Thrush. Clay-colored Thrush » Bird Watcher’s Digest (Accessed: 15 May 2020)
Blackford, M., S. Johnsen, and D. Rand. 2020. eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S69105917. eBird: An online
database of bird distribution and abundance (web application] eBird, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY.
Available: http://www.ebird.org. (Accessed: 8 October 2020)
Brush, T., and M. H. Conway. 2012. Range expansion of Clay-colored Thrush (Turdis grayi) in Texas. Texas Journal of
Science: 700-703.
Dougill, S. 2020 eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S69720945. eBird: An online database of bird distribution
and abundance (web application] eBird, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY. Available: http://www.ebird.org.
(Accessed: 8 October 2020)
eBird. 2020. eBird: An online database of bird distribution and abundance [web application] eBird, Cornell Lab of
Ornithology, Ithaca, NY. Available: http://www.ebird.org. (Accessed: 8 October 2020]
Hewetson, A. 2005. eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S63207429. eBird: An online database of bird
distribution and abundance (web application] eBird, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY. Available: http://www.
ebird.org. (Accessed: 8 October 2020)
Holland, T. 2020. eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S69185869. eBird: An online database of bird
distribution and abundance (web application] eBird, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY. Available: http://www.
ebird.org. (Accessed: 8 October 2020)
Howell, S. N. G., and S. Webb. 1999. Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America. Oxford University Press. New York,
NY.
iBird Pro Guide to Birds. 2020. Field Guide to North America for Apple iphone Version 12.5 Mitch Waite Group –
developer. Copyright Mitch Waite Group
Marjamaa, D. 2016. eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S30712037. eBird: An online database of bird
distribution and abundance (web application] eBird, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY. Available: http://www.
ebird.org. (Accessed: 8 October 2020)
McCabe, J. 2020. eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S69160460. eBird: An online database of bird distribution
and abundance (web application] eBird, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY. Available: http://www.ebird.org.
(Accessed: 8 October 2020)
Packer, J., and A. Packer. 2012. eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S10878730. eBird: An online database of
bird distribution and abundance (web application] eBird, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY. Available: http://
www.ebird.org. (Accessed: 8 October 2020)
Oberholser, H. C., and E. B. Kincaid. 1974. The Birdlife of Texas, Volume 2. University of Texas Press, Austin, TX.
O’Donnell, R. 2020. Clay-colored Thrush - Turdus grayi - Media Search - eBird and Macaulay Library. eBird: An online
database of bird distribution and abundance (web application] eBird, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY.
Available: http://www.ebird.org. (Accessed: 9 February 2021)
Olmstead, S. 2020. eBird checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S69191314. eBird: An online database of bird
distribution and abundance (web application] eBird, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY. Available: http://www.
ebird.org. (Accessed: 8 October 2020)
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Rosenberg, G. H., D. Vander Pluym, and L. Halsey. 2019. Arizona Bird Committee report, 2015-2017 records. Western
Birds 50:150-175.
Sibley, D. A. 2001. The Sibley Guide to Birds. Chanticleer Press Edition. Published in the United States by Alfred A.
Knopf, Inc., New York and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed by
Random House, Inc., New York.
Sibley Birds V2 for Apple iPhone. 2020. mydigitalearth.com – Developer Copyright @2017 Cool Ideas LLC. (Accessed
15 May 2020)
Van Perlo, B. 2006. Birds of Mexico and Central America Guide. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 41
William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540.
Williams, III, S. O. 2007. Fifth report of the New Mexico birds record committee. NMOS Bulletin 31:61-85.
Accepted 9 February 2021
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