Eastern Towhee Singing
Early on a clear, spring-like morning in the first week of January, the sun was just about to rise as I walked up the driveway for the Sunday paper. The air felt barely cool. The grass and shrubs were wet from light rain overnight. Several small birds chattered and flew around the front yard – all the usual suspects, Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Wren and Downy Woodpecker. A Ruby-crowned Kinglet flew into a Savannah holly right beside me, flashing a sliver of red on its crown. A Mourning Dove flew up on whistling wings from the ground. Dark-eyed Juncos fled from spot to spot among the dark leaves of wax myrtles along the driveway.
But the clear highlight of the morning was an Eastern Towhee sitting near the top of a large crape myrtle by the mailbox, singing Drink-your tea! Drink-tea! Drink-your-tea! The song was musical and ringing, with a light, delicate quality that seemed a little different from the Towhee’s usual rich, mellow tones – but maybe it was the setting, the fresh, early-morning light and air. In big, bold patches of color – coal-black back and head, red-orange flanks and white belly – the Towhee glowed like a bright flag caught among the dry, pale brown branches in the top of the bush.
He sang, apparently undisturbed, all the while I sauntered up the driveway, stopped right beside the crape myrtle and picked up the paper, and walked back down the driveway to the porch.
Since then he’s been singing from the same spot almost every morning – at least every morning when I’ve been up and out early enough to notice. Occasionally, a female Towhee joins him in the branches of the same bush, or – more often – she sits nearby, screened among the leaves of the wax myrtles.
For some reason, Eastern Towhees are songbirds I far too often overlook. Often when I’m making notes about the birds I’ve seen on a walk, a Towhee is the last bird I think of – the one I’m most likely to forget. And I don’t know why. It’s a beautiful bird, with its striking colors and dark red eye – black, red-orange and white in the male; warm brown, a more subdued red-orange and white in the female. Its song is one of the most familiar and pleasing birdsongs, confident and strong, as bold as its colors – but more nuanced, with a richly trilled quality to the notes. And its calls are equally nuanced – a full-throated, burry chur-WHEE, and a good many interesting variations.
The easy answer to why it’s often overlooked is that Towhees spend most of their time hidden in or under thick shrubs and underbrush. The sound of their scratching in the leaves, searching for food, is often the only way you might know they’re around. But that’s true of a lot of birds I don’t overlook, many are more often heard than seen. Somehow it seems to me that even though their songs and calls are so familiar a part of the background, for some reason Eastern Towhees don’t usually stand out. They blend.
Eastern Towhees are widely distributed, and are year-round residents here. I’ve found them in shrubby habitats everywhere from the southeastern coastal marshes, to the top of mountains in North Georgia. I well remember sitting on the top of a mountain after a hike one rainy morning in the spring and listening to an Eastern Towhee sing – after a moment of puzzling over what the birdsong was, because we weren’t expecting to find one there – one of the most familiar of birdsongs, but we didn’t immediately recognize it. They’re at home in rural old fields and pastures, and in suburban yards, but even there, they are perhaps not so much noticed as other birds like cardinals and mockingbirds.
I’m not sure how they do it, with their plump, fairly large size; bold, bright colors; animated behavior with intriguing personality; plenty of noisy scratching in the leaves, and full-throated, frequent singing and calling – but they really know how to blend in with their surroundings, in quite remarkable ways.