Tag Archives: Eastern Towhee in New England

For the Birds: Towhee saves the quest

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Photo by Chris Bosak – An eastern towhee perches on a tree branch in New England, August 2026.

I got home at 6 o’clock in the evening and had two hours of daylight left.

Did I have enough time to change and get to the park for a bird walk? Or should I sit around the house and do nothing?

I wouldn’t be writing a bird column about that evening if I chose the latter, so yes, I decided I did have enough time to look for some birds before it got dark.

It had been a long time since I had taken a decent bird photo, so my goal was to get one on this walk despite not having a lot of time. I didn’t care what bird it was, I just wanted to capture a good image. 

As I pulled into the parking lot, I started making odds in my head about what bird would present itself for a good photo opportunity first. I was about 90 percent sure it would be a catbird. They are reliable sightings all throughout the summer and often are not shy about being seen. If not a catbird, I thought, perhaps a song sparrow, mourning dove or cardinal. But catbird was definitely my best shot, I figured.

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Singing in the spring: Eastern towhee

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Photo by Chris Bosak An eastern towhee sings from a perch, spring 2025 at Huntington State Park in Redding, Connecticut.

Here’s the start of a new birdsofnewengland.com mini series called Singing in the Spring. It will feature, all together now, birds singing in the spring. The posts will appear randomly throughout this spring.

I’ll kick it off with an eastern towhee. Although a member of the sparrow family, which features mostly small brownish birds, the towhee is larger and much more decorated.

A little towhee time before warbler season

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Photo by Chris Bosak An eastern towhee perches on a branch in New England, April 25, 2019.

My foot was feeling up for a short, relatively non-taxing walk yesterday (Thursday) so I grabbed a walking stick and hit a trail. The aching foot enhanced the walk in one fashion as it made me slow down and take in all the sights and sounds of the spring New England woods. Too often when I walk I’m rushing to a destination or point of interest (pond or open field) and don’t take the time to fully absorb all that is around me. Not that I’m hoping the foot keeps hurting, but that was the silver lining in this latest bout of tendonitis.

It was still a bit early for a big warbler count — blue-winged and black-and-white were the only warbler species I found — but eastern towhees were numerous. I’ll expand on the eastern towhee in an upcoming post, but this large sparrow is one of my favorites. The calls and songs of the towhee filled the edge of the woods and I noticed several pairs, which bodes well for a strong breeding season (hopefully.) Above is the male eastern towhee and below is the female. The female is duller in color, but still a striking bird.

Photo by Chris Bosak A female eastern towhee perches on a branch in New England, April 25, 2019.

Starting with towhees: Cleaning off the desktop to get ready for fall

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Photo by Chris Bosak An eastern towhee perches in thick brush in Ridgefield, Conn., spring 2017.

Photo by Chris Bosak
An eastern towhee perches in thick brush in Ridgefield, Conn., spring 2017.

The spring and summer went by so quickly I didn’t have time to post many of the photos I was able to capture. Typically I posted a few shots of an outing in a post, but filed the dozens of other photos in a “get to them later” folder.

Well, with fall migration starting already, I figured this would be a good time to get around to them. So, without much fanfare or description, these next few posts will be random shots I collected this past spring and summer.

This post features the eastern towhees I found during an early May walk at Bennett’s Pond State Park in Ridgefield, Conn.

Photo by Chris Bosak An eastern towhee perches in thick brush in Ridgefield, Conn., spring 2017.

Photo by Chris Bosak
An eastern towhee perches in thick brush in Ridgefield, Conn., spring 2017.

Photo by Chris Bosak
An eastern towhee perches in thick brush in Ridgefield, Conn., spring 2017.

 

Lots of towhees on a rainy day

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Photo by Chris Bosak An Eastern Towhee perches on a branch in Ridgefield, Conn., April 2017.

Photo by Chris Bosak
An Eastern Towhee perches on a branch in Ridgefield, Conn., April 2017.

I spent some of the rainy Saturday at Bennett’s Pond in Ridgefield, Conn. I didn’t see or hear a single warbler, but I did see and hear several eastern towhees. It is a great bird with interesting plumage and a unique song.

Formerly called the rufous-sided towhee, this bird has light brown/reddish flanks. Its call is a loud and quickly uttered “tow-hee” and its song is the famous “drink-your-teaaa!” They are more often seen on the ground, scratching in the leaves to uncover food. The male is pictured in this post. The female, which I couldn’t photograph yesterday but did see, is also a handsome bird with white and reddish light brown plumage.

They were passing through in large numbers Saturday. I hope at least a few of them stick around locally to nest. It’s a great bird to see in summer when the birding can get a little slow.

You can even see the little rain drops on this guy.

Here’s one of him singing: Drink-your-teaaa!

Photo by Chris Bosak An Eastern Towhee sings from a perch in Ridgefield, Conn., April 2017.

Photo by Chris Bosak
An Eastern Towhee sings from a perch in Ridgefield, Conn., April 2017.

 

What will this late-fall/early-winter bring?

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Photo by Chris Bosak An Eastern Towhee calls from his perch at Selleck's Woods in Darien, Conn., April 2014.

Photo by Chris Bosak
An Eastern Towhee calls from his perch at Selleck’s Woods in Darien, Conn., April 2014.

For years I’ve struggled to get decent shots of Eastern Towhees. Either I couldn’t find them or they remained in thick brush, rendering them unphotographable (but safe from predators, which I guess is way more important than me getting a photograph of one.)

But last fall and early winter, I saw plenty of towhees. The best part is they occasionally came out into the open to be photographed. It was one of the highlights of last fall/early winter. Then, remember, the Snowy Owls came in force into New England.

What will this year bring? I guess we have to wait and see. If you see something interesting out there or you’ve taken a neat photo of a bird (or other wildlife), drop me a line at bozclark@earthlink.net. I’d love to put more photos on my “Reader Submitted Photos” page.