Eastern Towhee, Pipilo erythrophthalmus

Eastern TowheeWhat do you do on a sunny Sunday morning in fall? What else but go out birding! The call of the wild (well, as wild as Glacial Park is in fall) was too much so I went back there to a different area from where I recently found the Le Conte's Sparrows to see what else I could find. While Glacial Park isn't huge, it has a variety of different habitat from marshes and grassland to woods and glacial kames (hence the name!). The Le Conte's were in the grasslands so I headed for the woods.

It was still quite early and frosty so the birds were a little slow getting up but it was immediately obvious that there were plenty of sparrows around and also plenty of juncos, which I had not seen until Sunday. I sure made up for it though with over fifty of them on my walk around.

As I came to the woods I heard then saw this Eastern Towhee. I've been a little confused by these birds before as the first time I saw one was right at the top of a tree. Since then I've seen them where they normally hang out, low down and on the ground feeding in their preferred scrubby habitats. This one popped out long enough for me to get this shot - its not great but I wasn't totally disappointed.

The red eye of this adult male was very obvious in the early morning light. The towhee is actually one of the sparrows although somehow calling it a sparrow just doesn't feel right!