Spotted Towhee

Spotted Towhee, adult male

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

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.

Description

• 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.

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

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.

Sound

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

Conservation Status

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

Other Names

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

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.

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.