Eastern Towhee

Pipilo erythrophthalmus

Order PASSERIFORMES - Family EMBERIZIDAE

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1. Cool Facts
2. Description
3. Similar Species
4. Sound
5. Range
6. Habitat
7. Food
8. Behavior
9. Reproduction
10. Conservation Status
11. Other Names

One of the largest sparrows, the boldly patterned Eastern Towhee can be seen using its vigorous double-footed scratching technique below bird feeders and in scrubby habitats.

Cool Facts

• The Eastern Towhee has red eyes across most of its range, but the towhees in Florida and extreme southern Georgia have pale straw-colored eyes. Eye color is variable from southern Alabama to southeastern North Carolina, with the most variability in Georgia and coastal South Carolina. This pattern may reflect the fact that the pale-eyed form, which was isolated when Florida was an island during the Pleistocene era, is now coming back in contact with the red-eyed form of the mainland.

• The Eastern Towhee was considered the same species as the Spotted Towhee until 1995. Where the two forms meet in the Great Plains, hybrids occur.

Description

• Size: 17-21 cm (7-8 in)
• Wingspan: 20-28 cm (8-11 in)
• Weight: 32-52 g (1.13-1.84 ounces)

• Medium-sized songbird.
• Dark head and back (black in male, dark brown in female).
• White chest and belly.
• Rufous sides and flanks.

• White spot in wing.
• Long tail black with white outer tail feathers and at outer corners.
• Dark, short, thick bill.
• Eye red, or white in southeastern populations.

Sex Differences

Male has black hood, back, wings, and tail; female is dead-leaf brown where the male is black.

Immature

Juvenile is sparrow-like, with cinnamon brown upperparts, and buffier underparts; heavily streaked above and below. Juvenile male has black tail feathers and dark, distinct chest streaking, while the female has a browner tail and less distinct and browner chest streaks. Immature males have dull brown in wings contrasting with other black wing feathers.

Similar Species

• Closely related Spotted Towhee is nearly identical in appearance, except for having a variable number of white spots on the dark back.

Sound

Song is made of several introductory notes followed by a loud trill, "drink-your-teeeee." Call an upwardly inflected "chewink" or "toweee."

»listen to songs of this species

Range

Summer Range

Breeds from southern Canada, Manitoba to Quebec, southward to western Louisiana and southern Florida.

Winter Range

Winters from Oklahoma, southern Ohio, and New Jersey southward to central Texas and Florida. Occasionally farther north to southern New England.

Habitat

• Breeds in shrub habitats, often in dry environments and open ground. Old fields and forest edges, dune scrub, oak scrub, riparian thickets, and pine flatwoods with saw palmetto.
• Winters in similar areas and in residential areas.

Food

Seeds, fruits, spiders, insects, and other invertebrates.

Behavior

Foraging

Forages primarily on ground. Digs in litter with characteristic two-footed backwards hop.

Reproduction

Nest Type

Nests on ground at base of upright vegetation or in vine tangle or shrub. Nest made of bark strips, dead leaves, grass, plant stems, small twigs, and other material; lined with fine grass and rootlets, and sometimes hair.

Egg Description

Off-white or grayish, speckled with dark spots.

Clutch Size

2-6 eggs.

Condition at Hatching

Helpless and with only sparse down.

Conservation Status

Populations declining throughout range, most severely in New England.

Other Names

Tohi à flancs roux (French)

Sources used to construct this page:

Greenlaw, J. S. 1996. Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus). In The Birds of North America, No. 262 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and The American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C.