Pearly-eyed Thrasher

Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and Dick Daniels (carolinabirds.org)

Living in Florida and Caribbean has made me a bigger fan of birds than I used to be. Egrets, herons, pelicans and hummingbirds all rate well with me. But there is one Caribbean species that could topple the entire avian class into my "hate" column.

Pearly-eyed Thrashers are greedy, aggressive, opportunistic little buggers with loud calls. They compete handily not only with other birds but also with many amphibian and reptile species. Their aggressiveness makes them fairly fearless, even with regard to humans. I've seen Pearly-eyed Thrashers steal food from the plates of restaurant diners and shooing them away from the hotel bar is an exercise in futility, as they stare at you menacingly until you're close enough to touch them.

Aside from their imperturbability, Thrashers also have an ear-piercingly loud, sharp call, making them impossible to ignore when they're within 100 feet. So bothersome are they, that even though it is the height of thrasher season in the BVI, I haven't been able to find one, fearless example to photograph in the last few days, as though they've been intentionally hiding from my attempts at documentation, forcing me to make do with the borrowed image above.