Spring Begins (Brown Thrasher)

While Georgia’s state bird, the Brown Thrasher, is a fairly common bird, their numbers have been steadily declining the last several decades. According to the North American Breeding Bird Survey, between 1966 and 2015 populations declined by 41%. One cause is that their shrubby habitat is declining throughout the eastern U.S. as fields and forests regrow or are cleared altogether. Brown Thrashers often die in collisions with television towers (during migration) or with cars (since they often occur in roadside habitat). They can become unintended casualties of pesticides that people use to control insects, including organophosphates used in pecan plantations, dieldrin used on fields, and heptachlor used to combat Japanese beetles.

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