Eastern Towhee

Eastern Towhee, male, pale-eyed form

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Eastern Towhee, female, pale-eyed form

Eastern Towhee, juvenile

Eastern Towhee nest

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1. Description
2. Sound
3. Conservation Status
4. Other Names
5. Cool Facts
6. Full detailed species account

One of the largest sparrows, the boldly patterned Eastern Towhee can be seen using its vigorous double-footed scratching technique below bird feeders and in scrubby habitats.

Description

• Medium-sized songbird.
• Dark head and back (black in male, dark brown in female).
• White chest and belly.
• Rufous sides and flanks.

• Size: 17-21 cm (7-8 in)
• Wingspan: 20-28 cm (8-11 in)
• Weight: 32-52 g (1.13-1.84 ounces)

Sex Differences

Male has black hood, back, wings, and tail; female is dead-leaf brown where the male is black.

Sound

Song is made of several introductory notes followed by a loud trill, "drink-your-teeeee." Call an upwardly inflected "chewink" or "toweee."

Conservation Status

Populations declining throughout range, most severely in New England.

Other Names

Tohi à flancs roux (French)

Cool Facts

• The Eastern Towhee has red eyes across most of its range, but the towhees in Florida and extreme southern Georgia have pale straw-colored eyes. Eye color is variable from southern Alabama to southeastern North Carolina, with the most variability in Georgia and coastal South Carolina. This pattern may reflect the fact that the pale-eyed form, which was isolated when Florida was an island during the Pleistocene era, is now coming back in contact with the red-eyed form of the mainland.

• The Eastern Towhee was considered the same species as the Spotted Towhee until 1995. Where the two forms meet in the Great Plains, hybrids occur.

Sources used to construct this page:

Greenlaw, J. S. 1996. Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus). In The Birds of North America, No. 262 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and The American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C.