Spotted Towhee

Day 32: If there is a bird more difficult to photograph than a jumpy, twitchy Spotted Towhee (Pipilo maculatus), I hope it never comes to my feeders! Towhee scratches up seeds by sinking his front talons into the soil or grass, then propels himself jerkily backwards with repeated thrusts. His tail is almost constantly in motion, flicking up and down, left and right while his head snaps from side to side, always on the alert for a predator. One second here, in the next he'll be three feet away and by the time you've focused your camera, this elusive bird is among the bushes and hidden from sight.

Towhee's bright red eye is brown when the bird is young. His outer tailfeathers are cornered with white to complement the white spots on his wings, a field identification point which is often helpful as a flash of black and rust darts from the edge of observeration and into dense brush.

He is sometimes referred to as the "Rufous-Sided Towhee" (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) in field guides, although taxonomists now tend to consider the East Coast and West Coast variants one and the same bird.