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Spotted Towhee Life History

Habitat

ScrubSpotted Towhees are birds of dry thickets, brushy tangles, forest edges, old fields, shrubby backyards, chaparral, coulees, and canyon bottoms, places with dense shrub cover and plenty of leaf litter for the towhees to scratch around in.Back to top

Food

OmnivoreIn the breeding season, Spotted Towhees eat mainly insects including ground beetles, weevils, ladybugs, darkling beetles, click beetles, wood-boring beetles, crickets, grasshoppers, caterpillars, moths, bees, and wasps. Other leaf-litter arthropods such as millipedes, sowbugs, and spiders are taken as well. They also eat acorns, berries, and seeds including buckwheat, thistle, raspberry, blackberry, poison oak, sumac, nightshade, chickweed, and crops such as oats, wheat, corn, and cherries. In fall and winter, these plant foods make up the majority of their diet.Back to top

Nesting

Nest Placement

GroundSpotted Towhees place their nests either on the ground or near it (though occasionally up to 12 feet high). They often choose fairly exposed areas over sites deep inside a thicket, but within these areas they find a clump of grass, a log, or the base of a shrub to conceal their nests against.

Nest Description

The female builds the nest beginning with a framework of dry leaves, stems, and bark strips. She lines this with an inner cup of fine, dry materials such as grasses, rootlets, pine needles, and hair. The finished nest is about 4.5 inches across, with an inner cup 2.5-4 inches across and about 2.5 inches deep. Ground nests are built into depressions so that the nest rim is at the soil surface or only slightly above it.

Nesting Facts

Clutch Size:2-6 eggs
Number of Broods:1-3 broods
Egg Length:0.8-1.0 in (2-2.6 cm)
Egg Width:0.7-0.8 in (1.7-1.9 cm)
Incubation Period:12-13 days
Nestling Period:10-12 days
Egg Description:White, gray, green, or pinkish, spotted with reddish brown, purple or gray.
Condition at Hatching:Naked except for sparse tufts of grayish down, eyes closed, clumsy.
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Behavior

Ground ForagerSpotted Towhees rummage in the leaf litter or creep through thick shrubs. Towhees tend to hop wherever they go, moving deliberately and giving themselves plenty of time to spot food items. They scratch at leaves with a characteristic two-footed backward hop, then pounce on anything they’ve uncovered. During conflicts between two towhees, you may see one bird pick up a piece of twig, bark, or leaf and carry it around. This seems to be an indication of submission. Disturbed or alarm-calling towhees flick their wings while perched, sometimes flashing the white corners in the tail.Back to top

Conservation

Low Concern

Spotted Towhees are widespread and abundant, and their numbers remained relatively stable between 1966 and 2019, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey. Partners in Flight estimates a global breeding population of 40 million and rates them 8 out of 20 on the Continental Concern Score, indicating a species of low conservation concern. Development creates more of their preferred shrubby, open habitat, but also makes them more vulnerable to predation by cats. Forms on a few islands off California and Mexico may be negatively affected by habitat loss or overgrazing.

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Credits

Bartos Smith, Sarah and Jon S. Greenlaw. (2015). Spotted Towhee (Pipilo maculatus), version 2.0. In The Birds of North America (P. G. Rodewald, editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York, USA.

Dunne, P. (2006). Pete Dunne's essential field guide companion. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York, USA.

Ehrlich, P. R., D. S. Dobkin, and D. Wheye (1988). The Birder's Handbook. A Field Guide to the Natural History of North American Birds, Including All Species That Regularly Breed North of Mexico. Simon and Schuster Inc., New York, NY, USA.

Lutmerding, J. A. and A. S. Love. (2020). Longevity records of North American birds. Version 2020. Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Bird Banding Laboratory 2020.

Partners in Flight. (2020). Avian Conservation Assessment Database, version 2020.

Sauer, J. R., D. K. Niven, J. E. Hines, D. J. Ziolkowski Jr., K. L. Pardieck, J. E. Fallon, and W. A. Link (2019). The North American Breeding Bird Survey, Results and Analysis 1966–2019. Version 2.07.2019. USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Laurel, MD, USA.

Sibley, D. A. (2014). The Sibley Guide to Birds, second edition. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY, USA.

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