For the Birds: Spotted Towhee

Male Spotted Towhee. Photo by Christine Southwick.

by Christine Southwick

Rustle, rustle, scratch, and scratch. What is making that noise? Deep under a bush, behind thick twigs is movement—is it a bird, a squirrel, a giant _ _ _ _?

Could it be Spotted Towhee?

A larger member of the sparrow family, the Spotted Towhee searches the ground for seeds, beetles, weevils, and such, using their famous two-footed-backward-hop to turn over leaves and debris where these savories are hidden. Towhees can be found low in trees and bushes when acorns, berries and fruit are ripe. The male towhees perch in trees to sing their territorial love songs, until they are mated, then they return to ground foraging.

Thicket and edge-of-forest skulkers, Spotted Towhees, once rare west of the Cascades, have taken advantage of clear cutting openings to expand their range. Our mild winters allow Spotted Towhees here to survive comfortably without migrating.

They are ground nesters, with the female making a nest for her 2-5 eggs in a ground depression or against a stump. From late March until late August the nests are active, so it is very important to keep dogs on leashes when in parks and in wild areas. Interestingly, when a nesting female is disturbed, she will scurry away like a wren or a mouse, rather than fly.

Juvenile Spotted Towhee. Photo by Christine Southwick.

Young towhees look like large streaked sparrows. The white on the underside of their tail feathers is often your best clue, at least until their body feathers start molting into the rufus sides worn by the adults. The young are fed for about 30 days by both parents, unless there’s a second brood—then all the feeding is done by the male.

Want towhees in your yard? Make a wild space in a corner or yard edge. Start with a brush pile behind other bushes, and rake your leaves there in the winter. Plant native shrubs with fruit, like twinberry or evergreen huckleberry. Scatter some shelled sunflower bits, not millet, on the ground in front of that area, early in the day, so birds will eat it all before darkness. Towhees will use feeders and suet, if there is a route of good cover leading to the feeders. Once they find your yard wild enough they will become residents.

If you hear a rustle, rustle, sometimes followed by a distinctive cat-squawk, look for a Spotted Towhee.

Christine Southwick is on the Board of the Puget Sound Bird Observatory and is their Winter Urban Color-banding Project Manager.  She is a National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat Steward, having completed their forty hour class. We're happy that she's sharing her expertise with us about the birds in our backyards.