Spotted Towhee

Pipilo maculatus

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

A familiar bird of scrubby habitats, the Spotted Towhee was formerly considered the same species as the Eastern Towhee. The two forms hybridize on the Great Plains.

Cool Facts

• Watch a Spotted Towhee feeding on the ground; you'll probably observe its two-footed, backwards-scratching hop. This "double-scratching" is used by a number of towhee and sparrow species to unearth the seeds and small invertebrates they feed on. One Spotted Towhee with an unusable, injured foot was observed hopping and scratching with one foot.

• The Spotted Towhee hybridizes with the Eastern Towhee where their ranges meet in the Great Plains. It also hybridizes with the Collared Towhee where their ranges meet in Mexico.

• Twenty-one different subspecies of Spotted Towhee are recognized, three on islands off the Pacific Coast. The race from Isla Guadalupe off Baja California is extinct. The small race on the island of Socorro off Baja California and the larger race on Santa Catalina Island off southern California are vulnerable to extinction because of their restricted ranges. The Santa Catalina form formerly was found on San Clemente Island, but disappeared from there by 1976.

Description

• Size: 17-21 cm (7-8 in)
• Weight: 33-49 g (1.16-1.73 ounces)

• Medium-sized songbird.
• Head, back, wings, and tail dark (black in male, female paler).
• Chest and belly white.
• Sides and flanks rufous.
• White spots on wings and back.

• Two white wingbars.
• Long tail black with white outer tail feathers and white at outer corners.
• Bill dark, short, and thick.
• Eyes red.

Sex Differences

Male has black hood, back, wings, and tail. Female is paler where the male is black, ranging from brownish to gray-brown to blackish.

Immature

Juvenile is sparrowlike, with buffy brown upperparts, and dull buff underparts; heavily streaked above and below. Buffy white streaks on back and spots on wings.

Similar Species

• Closely related Eastern Towhee is nearly identical in appearance, but has no white spots on dark back, no wingbars, and a white spot on the edge of the wing at the base of the primaries.

Sound

Song is one or more introductory notes followed by a loud trill, or the trill alone. Call a raspy upwardly inflected "queee."

»listen to songs of this species

Range

Summer Range

Breeds from southern Canada, from Pacific Coast eastward to Saskatchewan, southward to western Texas and into Mexico and Guatemala.

Winter Range

Winters from southern British Columbia, southern Idaho, and western Colorado southward, and eastward to eastern Kansas and eastern Texas.

Habitat

• Breeds in shrubby habitats, intermediate in elevation between desert and subalpine-coniferous forests.
• Winters in shrub and thicket habitat.

Food

Insects, litter arthropods, seeds, acorns, and fruit.

Behavior

Foraging

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

Reproduction

Nest Type

Nests on ground or in low vegetation. Nest made of strips of bark, dead leaves, dry grass, and plant stems. Lined with fine grass, rootlets, pine needles, or hair.

Egg Description

White to grayish-white with fine dark spotting concentrated at large end.

Clutch Size

Usually 2-6 eggs.

Condition at Hatching

Helpless and with some down.

Conservation Status

Widespread and abundant, increasing in some areas. Island forms vulnerable.

Other Names

Tohi tacheté (French)
Chouís, Toquí de Socorro (Spanish)

Sources used to construct this page:

Greenlaw, J. S. 1996. Spotted Towhee (Pipilo maculatus). In The Birds of North America, No. 263 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and The American Ornthologists' Union, Washington, D.C.