Frosty The Towhee

Day 52: The Spotted Towhees (Pipilo maculatus) were particularly photogenic this morning, perhaps because of a heavy frost. Normally a very elusive and rapidly moving subject, several of them perched on various branches of the contorted filbert instead of scurrying around beneath it, furtively lurking in the tangled stems. A beautiful robin-sized bird, they remain in the Pacific Northwest throughout the winter, adding color at the feeders, our "Christmas bird" stand-in for the cardinals of the eastern portion of the country.