Description: The Crissal thrasher is large and slender, 29 cm (11.5 in.) long. Plumage olive brown above, smoke gray below, with distinctive reddish undertail patch and dark whisker streak; eyes straw colored, and bill greatly decurved. Nesting season from February to July; clutch size
2 - 4 eggs; incubation 14 days; chicks fledge 11 - 12 days after hatching. Distinguished from curve-billed thrashers by its unspotted breast and reddish undertail patch.
Diet: Berries, insects, and small lizards.
Habitat: Dense brush along desert streams and mesquite thickets, willow (Salix), saltbush (Atriplex), and chaparral of mountains up to 1,800 m (6,000 ft). Secretive, hides in underbrush. Nests in branches of willow close to trunk and in mesquite.
Range: Southeast California to southern Nevada, Utah, south to Texas and Mexico. Year-round resident in Clark County, Nevada.
Comments: Formerly known as Toxostoma dorsale.