Spotted Towhee
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Emberizidae
Genus: Pipilo
Species: maculatus
**Audio Below**
Description
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Length: 8.5"
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Wing span: 10.5"
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Weight: 1.4 oz (40 grams)
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Medium sized songbird
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Head, back, wings, and tail dark black in male and female pale black to gray
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Red eyes, chest and belly white, sides and flanks rufous with white spots on wings and back
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Males and females look alike except for the more pale hood on the female **Last photo to right is a female
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Juveniles are sparrowlike with buffy brown coloration and heavily streaked
Factoids:
- A familiar bird of scrubby habitats, the Spotted Towhee was formerly considered the same species as the Eastern Towhee. The two forms hybridize on the Great Plains
- Watch a Spotted Towhee feeding on the ground; you'll probably observe its two-footed, backwards-scratching hop. This "double-scratching" is used by a number of towhee and sparrow species to unearth the seeds and small invertebrates they feed on. One Spotted Towhee with an unusable, injured foot was observed hopping and scratching with one foot
- The Spotted Towhee hybridizes with the Eastern Towhee where their ranges meet in the Great Plains. It also hybridizes with the Collared Towhee where their ranges meet in Mexico
- Twenty-one different subspecies of Spotted Towhee are recognized, three on islands off the Pacific Coast. The race from Isla Guadalupe off Baja California is extinct. The small race on the island of Socorro off Baja California and the larger race on Santa Catalina Island off southern California are vulnerable to extinction because of their restricted ranges. The Santa Catalina form formerly was found on San Clemente Island, but disappeared from there by 1976.
All photographs and audio clips are ©Jamie Mullin 2006
Sources: Cornell Lab of Ornithology & The Sibley Guide to Birds.
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