Thursday Birdblogging

Here's some fun, we have two different species of towhee that were thought at one time to be the same, the 'roufous towhee'. But what I saw out west was the canyon towhee, not nearly so easy to spot.

Cool fact: At one time, the Eastern Towhee and the closely related Spotted Towhee from the western United States were known collectively as the Rufous-sided Towhee. Today, they are considered separate species.

The Eastern Towhee is a bird that calls either its name, towhee, or the vernacular expression, chewink. The distinctive song typically has two introductory notes—the second lower in pitch, followed by a higher pitched trill. It sounds much like drink your teeeeeee. from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/BOW/EASTOW/

My canyon towhee is courtesy of http://towhee.sourceforge.net/canyon_towhee.jpg. The Eastern, middle, from www.baldeagleinfo.com and the spotted Towhee below, from nrs.ucdavis.edu, are appreciated.

I looked very hard for the towhees my guide in Garden of Gods said were there in the bushes, finally found them when I dropped back by myself to the bushes where they were. But heard them quite a bit both times, they're not quiet birds.