Eastern Towhee

About the Eastern Towhee

A big, handsome towhee dressed in a tuxedo with rust trim: jet-black hood and back on the male, warm rufous flanks, white belly, and a glowing red eye. Females wear the same pattern in rich chocolate brown. It is one of the best-looking birds that ever kicks leaves under a Texas thicket.

The kicking is the signature. Towhees forage with a two-footed backward hop that sends leaf litter flying, and the rustle is usually how you find one - a sound like something much bigger working the brush. The call gives the bird its name: an upslurred chew-INK or "to-WHEE" from inside cover, and on the breeding grounds the famous drink-your-tea song.

Eastern Towhees are mostly winter birds in Texas, sliding down from the eastern U.S. to spend November through March in our brushy edges and bottomland tangles. In much of the state the closely related Spotted Towhee - white-spangled where this bird is plain black - winters too, and comparing the pair is half the fun.

They are skulkers, but patient pishing at a promising thicket often pulls one up to eye level for a few seconds. Catch that red eye against the black hood in soft light and the photograph makes itself.