Where There Are No Crows or Jays

Pearly-eyed thrasher on Guana Island, British Virgin Islands (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

24 February 2022

Corvids [crows, jays, magpies] occupy virtually every terrestrial habitat on Earth, including Arctic tundra, arid deserts, urban streets, and tropical rainforest. Having likely dispersed around the world over millions of years from an Australasian core, it is odd that they never reached New Zealand or Patagonia or disappeared from them both.

Birds of the World: Corvidae account

It’s hard to imagine a place without any crows or jays but it is true of the southern end of South America, New Zealand and quite a few Caribbean and Pacific islands. I learned this seven years ago when I visited a place that has none of them: St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands.

In the absence of intelligent omnivorous corvids, other birds fill their niche. The all-purpose crow/jay/predator at St. John is the pearly-eyed thrasher (Margarops fuscatus) …

… an aggressive, opportunistic omnivore that feeds primarily on large insects, but also feeds on fruits and berries, and will occasionally eat lizards, frogs, small crabs and other bird’s eggs and nestlings.

Wikipedia: Pearly-eyed Thrasher account

He acts like a jay, hunts like a corvid, and eats like a crow. I think he looks more aggressive than a blue jay. Maybe it’s the pearly eye.

Pearly-eyed thrasher at St. John, USVI (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

On Throw Back Thursday, learn about this thrasher in the corvid niche in this 2015 article:

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