Tweeters,

Sorry this is a NA listers thing. Please forgive.

Le Conte's Thrasher can be a difficult one to track down, and probably
appears on a lot of personal lists only as nemesis bird. Perhaps the
most reliable Thrasher location in NA is the intersection of Baseline
and Salome near Buckeye, AZ and the best time to find them is Feb-
March when the males are perched up and singing.

Yesterday Leora and I had time to kill in Phoenix, so decided to throw
together a quick thrasher expedition

We went after them tapeless, using the low tech sneaky through the
desert approach and the birds are definitely there. In and hour we
located perhaps as many as 12, with a couple of them letting us get
within 100 feet. Only one tried to sing, and that was more of a mumble.

We also found one Crissal Thrasher, and a Bendire's had been reported
there the day before. This spot also has good numbers of Sage
Sparrows, which act like little Le Conte's, running away with their
tails cocked up.

This spot of flat desert is located 50 miles straight west of the
Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.

Nice little Birder's World article with a map here.

http://www.birdersworld.com/brd/default.aspx?c=a&id=779

List on,

Larry Schwitters
Issaquah