The spotted towhee (Pipilo maculatus) is a large New World sparrow. The taxonomy of the towhees has been debated in recent decades, and until 1995 this bird and the eastern towhee were considered a single species, the rufous-sided towhee.[2] Another outdated name for the spotted towhee is the Oregon towhee (Pipilo maculatus oregonus). The call may be harsher and more varied than for the eastern towhee.
Individuals in the Socorro Island population are much smaller than other spotted towhees, and show distinctive gray upper-parts. That population is sometimes treated as a species: the Socorro towhee (Pipilo socorroensis).
Description Spotted Towhee female Female in Sacramento, California. The spotted towhee is a large New World sparrow, roughly the same size as a robin. It has a long, dark, fan-shaped tail with white corners on the end. It has a round body (similar to New World sparrows) with bright red eyes and dull pink legs. The spotted towhee is between 17 cm (6.7 in) and 21 cm (8.3 in) long, and weighs in at between 33 g (1.2 oz) and 49 g (1.7 oz). It has a wingspan of 11.0 in (28 cm).
Adult males have a generally darker head, upper body and tail with a white belly, rufous sides, white spots on their back and white wing bars. Females look similar but are dark brown and grey instead of black. The spotted towhee has white spots on its primary and secondary feathers; the Eastern towhee is the same bird in terms of its size and structure but does not have white spots.
Distribution and habitat The spotted towhee lives in dry upland forests,open forests, brushy fields, and chaparrals. It breeds across north-western North America and is present year-round in California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and southern British Columbia. It is not found in arid climates and as a result does not reside in the Sonoran Desert, but resides in northern Arizona and the entirety of California except the southeast corner that borders Arizona. It has also been known to expand as far eastward as western Iowa and southwestern Minnesota. It also occurs in fringe wetland forests and riparian forests near the border of upland forests.[5] Because the spotted towhee's habitat overlaps with areas of the United States that experience regular forest fires (Arizona, New Mexico, California), it tends to be found in unburned chaparral and avoids chaparral and forests which have been burned due to lack of ground cover and minimal foraging ability. Spotted towhees will be present in an area that is recovering after a burn (less than 15 years old), due to excellent ground cover and ease of ground foraging from the recovering understory vegetation, although populations will decrease after a forest fire until the vegetation has grown back.
Spotted towhee at Vasona Park Its breeding habitat in the southwest is largely dependent on coastal sage scrub, as it provides cover from predators.
