Sunday, March 23, 2008

What are you?

Happy Easter

~~

This Easter Morning we were greeted with a
New Bird ALERT at the feeders, grabbing the camera for a hasty picture or six…
Grab the Audubon Book…
Tohi à flancs roux (French)

Go GOOGLE the information A warbler ~~~~ nope too big to be a warbler
A Grosbeak
The male Rose-breasted Grosbeak, boldly patterned in black, white, and rose, is easily identified. The drab, striped female, however, is more of a challenge, resembling a large sparrow or finch. A common bird of forests and second growth, the grosbeak's song is like that of the robin, only as sung by an opera singer, being mellower and more sweetly melodic.
~~~~~~~~
Nope the rust color was not enough for that one
Think we have a winner: The Eastern Towhee, Pipilo erythrophthalmus, is a large sparrow. The taxonomy of the towhees has been under debate in recent decades, and formerly this bird and the Spotted Towhee were considered a single species, the Rufous-sided Towhee.

Adults have rufous sides, a white belly and a long dark tail with white edges. The eyes are red, white for birds in the southeast. Males have a dark head, upper body and tail; these parts are brown in the female.
Their breeding habitat is brushy areas across eastern North America. They nest either low in bushes or on the ground under shrubs. Northern birds migrate to the southern United States.

There has been one record of this species as a vagrant to western Europe; a single bird in Great Britain in 1966.

These birds forage on the ground or in low vegetation. They mainly eat insects, acorns, seeds and berries.

The call is Drink your teeeee; the word "towhee" imitates this call.

Drink your teeeee?

Or?
Rufous-sided Towhee - Pipilo erythrophthalmus YIKES or? Rose - breasted Grosbeak?
HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

9 comments:

Kostas said...

Marvellous time, for a lot of beautiful photographs, or rest in the house! Happy Easter!

Lilli & Nevada said...

Have no clue but sure is pretty
Hope you had a good Easter

Alyssa said...

Boy, that would be a hard one to figure out. I thought it was a Grosbeak. Very pretty pictures.
Congrats on your team. Steve said "I'll bet your blog friend in West Virginia will be very happy with that win!" I didn't know what he was talking about so he explained about March Madness etc. I get it now! I love those flower pot cup cakes - very cute and tasty looking.

Anonymous said...

It isn't a Rose-breasted Grosbeak or at least those I have seen are not like this in color. Their red is really red. I suspect it is a different kind but none I am familiar with.

There is a bird that looks like a Dark-eyed Junco, but larger, who had this brownish patch of feathers on the side and I just saw one on a blog yesterday but I am not able to recall what it was or the name of the blog I saw it on.

Have a nice week.

Abraham Lincoln in Brookville, Ohio

Tom said...

Rufous-sided Towhee or Eastern...
I cannot make my mind up 100% but I would be thrilled no matter what it was.. well captured.

Willard said...

Yep, that is definitely a towhee. I'm like Tom, I don't know what sub-species for sure (I suspect rufous sided) but there is no doubt it is a Towhee.

We have them here and I have never gotten a good still photo of them, but I have taken some good video clips.

DeeMom said...

I had my Sweetie look at the pictures I took along with what I had Googled, plus the Audubon Book and we think it is the Rufous-sided Towhee - Pipilo erythrophthalmus.

The clincher was the eye; the Rufous has the dark eyes while the other Towhee has a yellow eye. BUT all that withstanding, I need to get better pictures to be sure. Thank you all sure helps having other ideas…

Saw it yesterday, but I was unloading groceries…so by the time I could sit down the bird was gone…

Kerri Farley said...

Great post! Glad you got it identified!

Anonymous said...

I think it is a:
Eastern Towhee
Pipilo erythrophthalmus
Order: PASSERIFORMES
cheers Gisela