Happy Mother’s Day to all of those Mom’s out there! I hope your day is relaxing and memorable in some good and amazing way. I’m sure there will be many behind me who say, “Thank you for all you do, and for all of the sacrifices you’ve made. We appreciate you!!”
Last week’s handsome bird in our puzzler was the male eastern towhee. This bird used to be called the rufous-sided towhee, but is sometimes the case with nature and scientists, the name got changed. But rufous-sided is a good description for this bird as that is exactly what it has.
Eastern towhees are a kind of sparrow, as you can see from their characteristic seed-breaking beak. They have a chunky body and a long, rounded tail. Females look similar but with somewhat muted colors and without the distinctive black head and back.
Towhees eat a variety of material from fruit, seeds, flower buds, to spiders, insects, centipedes, millipedes and other invertebrates. They spend most of their time on the forest floor, hopping around in the leaf litter. They will scratch the leaves, then hop backwards, looking for moving insects and other prey. Seems like when they are doing this in my yard, they make a lot of noise!
So blue ghost firefly season is upon us, and that means I’ll be busy with tours each night. I’ll be taking a break on the puzzlers while this happens… check back in a few weeks for puzzler 270.
Just a note to say how much I enjoy your blog! I live in Colorado, so many of the birds you feature are new to me. We have spotted towhees and green-tailed towhees here. It’s interesting to learn about their eastern cousins.
Hey Karen, Thanks for taking time to comment. I’m glad you are enjoying the blog! I will try to feature some CO animals and plants so you can see some familiar “faces.” Thanks for following along!