Often missed by birders, particularly those of us who hear poorly, is one of our most attractive species — the eastern towhee. Until 1995, it was called the rufous-sided towhee, a very descriptive ...

Characteristics: A sparrow-sized bird, this towhee has a black head, red eye and the males have a black back with white spots, hence the common name. Females are browner instead of black. The ...

The rufous-sided towhee, with its striking plumage, is a somewhat secretive member of the finch family that flits from beneath vegetation to visit feeders or scratch around in garden litter.

The following 20 birds moved the most north of all 305 species studied by the Audubon Society. For five of the birds on the list – Wild Turkey, Marbled Murrelet, Ring-billed Gull, House Finch and ...

From forest edges and thickets on late spring mornings in the Northeast comes what sounds like an exhortation from across the pond: “drink-your-tea!” This is not a British parent’s plea, but rather ...

McEnroe's first rufous-sided towhee in full frolic, while keeping an eye out for Caster Don and his all-weather mower. It's a new one for Steve McEnroe and his life list of birds. The towhee was a ...

A selection of bird essays by renowned ornithologist and artist George Miksch Sutton (1898-1982), founder of the Avian Research Center in Norman, Okla., was posthumously published in 1986 as “Birds ...

A male eastern towhee is quite dashing in appearance. Black above, white below and a lovely cinnamon-brown on the flanks give this bird the look of a tuxedoed gentleman on his way to some high-society ...

Several years ago, a rufous-sided towhee raged war against the window in my old office. Every day for weeks, the male bird relentlessly attacked the glass with his black, pointy beak. A couple of ...

Claim to fame: When males are in bright courtship plumage in spring, the Eastern towhee is one of the more interestingly marked birds you’ll see at forest edges and in old overgrown fields throughout ...