SAVING LECONTE’S THRASHER

LeConte’s thrashers are secretive songbirds who live in arid desert habitats of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. Nicknamed the “gray ghost” due to their elusive nature and pale sandy plumage that helps them blend into desert landscapes, they forage on the ground for insects. LeConte’s thrashers rarely fly, instead running with their tails cocked like miniature velociraptors and scooting into brushy cover when threatened. Male thrashers are most noticeable during breeding season, when they perch on shrubs to sing high-pitched, complex, melodious songs.

Natural History

LeConte’s thrashers eat mostly arthropods like grasshoppers, beetles, caterpillars, ants, spiders, and scorpions. They also prey on lizards and small rodents, consume eggs of other birds, and eat mesquite seeds and desert plants. Thrashers forage using their long, curved bills to clear leaf litter, dig pits in the ground, and flip over rocks and debris. They chase prey on foot and sometimes glean invertebrates off low vegetation. During the breeding season, LeConte’s thrashers build four-layered stick nests in dense shrubs, often in cholla cacti or saltbrush.

Population Status

The global population of LeConte’s thrashers is estimated to be only 71,000 birds. The U.S. population is about 46,000, with 80% of birds living in Southern California. The 2025 U.S. State of the Birds report named LeConte’s thrashers one of the country’s 42 Red Alert Tipping Point Species — bird species that have lost more than half their populations within the past 50 years and whose declines require immediate and urgent action. LeConte’s thrashers have lost nearly 70% of their U.S. population, primarily because of destructive sprawl development and other habitat degradation in Southern California, Nevada, and Arizona. Without strong habitat protection, LeConte’s thrashers could vanish from the face of the Earth.

Threats

Unchecked sprawl development is a major threat to the continued existence of LeConte’s thrashers. Southeastern California has undergone rapid development of subdivisions, agriculture, energy and industrial facilities, and roads that destroy and fragment their desert habitat. Core thrasher populations in western Riverside County, California, and near Las Vegas, Nevada, and Phoenix are especially threatened by sprawl development.

The proposed construction of Interstate 11, a 280-mile highway between Nogales and Wickenburg, Arizona, would pave over and bisect habitat for a core thrasher population west of Phoenix.

Other significant threats to LeConte’s thrashers are habitat damage from off-road vehicles, mining, and livestock grazing. The spread of invasive plants reduces the insect food and nesting shrubs that thrashers need and increases the intensity and frequency of damaging fire. Increasing temperatures are also eliminating the bird’s food and nesting locations. Rapid climate change poses a serious threat to LeConte’s thrashers especially because these birds do not disperse long distances and struggle to adapt to other habitats.

Our Campaign

To help save LeConte’s thrashers from extinction, the Center has petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect them under the Endangered Species Act. When a species gets protected, the Act requires the Service to draft a recovery plan, which is a roadmap outlining actions to help the species recover and eventually thrive in the wild. The Service must also designate critical habitat to protect the lands the species needs to survive and recover.

The Act requires other federal agencies to consult with the Service to make sure any actions they fund, permit, or carry out don’t jeopardize protected species or harm their critical habitat. For LeConte’s thrashers, that means Endangered Species Act protection could limit sprawl development in sensitive desert ecosystems.

Check out our press releases to learn more about the Center’s actions to save LeConte’s thrashers.