Eastern Towhee Threat Calls
Three Eastern Towhees perched in some tall, dense shrubs along a fence, close to each other but not too close, flashing their tails and appearing agitated. Brightly colorful, with ruby eyes in a black-hooded face and breast, black back and tail, snow-white belly and red-orange sides, all three were males. One of them was making a kind of clicking, percussive noise that at times almost became a trill, but not musical at all. I’ve never heard Towhees make this call before, but found this description of their threat calls in Birds of North America that includes sounds like what I heard:
Variable, abrupt, explosive, often metallic-sounding notes, given singly or repeated with variants in short sputter; included are sounds like tip-tip-tip! tep!, tip-tep!, chp-cht!, stee!, chp-chee-chee! . . . chp-ste!, teek!, etc., all uttered as outbursts during male-male encounters (fights, chases) and male female chases.*
The species account in Birds of North America also notes:
Despite its popularity and wide occurrence across eastern North America, many details of the Eastern Towhee’s natural history remain poorly known . . . Because the bird spends much of its time near or on the ground in dense habitats and scrubby growth . . . it is usually difficult to study.
While Eastern Towhees are common around my own yard and throughout the neighborhood, I think it’s the bird I am most likely to overlook or forget about having seen. I’m not sure why, because they are fairly large, boldly colorful, and interesting to watch. Maybe it’s mostly that they do stay hidden much of the time, but I also think I tend to take them too much for granted, and that paying more attention to Towhees might be one good way to remind myself to fully see and hear what’s here, instead of looking for the unusual. As the species account in BNA also notes, there’s a great deal still to be learned by watching Towhees – and other common birds.
* Jon S. Greenlaw. 1996. Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.) Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology.