Tag: lost dutchman state park

As I neared the end of my walk I saw this homely little ball of fluff (top photo) perched on the rim of his nest in a cholla. I took a single step closer, and Mother Thrasher immediately swooped in, knocked Junior back into the nest, sat on him*, and glared angrily** at me. When you look up stink eye in the dictionary*** this is the picture they use as illustration. 

Curve-billed thrasher (Toxostoma curvirostre), mother and child. At Lost Dutchman State Park in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona. Please click photos for enlarged views.

* An essential parenting skill, not practiced widely enough in these permissive times. 

** With apologies to my ethologist friend, Professor Tom Jenssen at Virginia Tech, for ascribing such patently human traits to this poor mama bird. The fact is, curve-bills always look angry. 

*** In olden times this is how we found out things we didn’t know. Usually we found the effort too great, and chose instead to remain ignorant. 

As I neared the end of my walk I saw this homely little ball of fluff (top photo) perched on the rim of his nest in a cholla. I took a single step closer, and Mother Thrasher immediately swooped in, knocked Junior back into the nest, sat on him*, and glared angrily** at me. When you look up stink eye in the dictionary*** this is the picture they use as illustration. 

Curve-billed thrasher (Toxostoma curvirostre), mother and child. At Lost Dutchman State Park in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona. Please click photos for enlarged views.

* An essential parenting skill, not practiced widely enough in these permissive times. 

** With apologies to my ethologist friend, Professor Tom Jenssen at Virginia Tech, for ascribing such patently human traits to this poor mama bird. The fact is, curve-bills always look angry. 

*** In olden times this is how we found out things we didn’t know. Usually we found the effort too great, and chose instead to remain ignorant.