canyon towhee

I want a drink!

taken at Davis Mountains, West Texas

My lifer Canyon Towhee, seen at the Randall Davey Audubon Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Quick post between spurts of data coding. Will catch up on browsing later. This was my last lifer of the New Mexico trip. A common and plain bird that used to be considered just a color variant of the California Towhee, but has now been split off into a species of its own. This one popped up...

This is the only time I have photographed this bird with its crown raised.

My first Canyon Towhee (lifer #473), seen on a juniper in the parking lot as soon as my mom and I exited the car at the Randall Davey Audubon Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (Polioptila caerulea) This Gnatcatcher was making life miserable for this Canyon Towhee (Melozone fusca). I figured the Gnatcatcher and Towhee both had nests in the vicinity and that the Towhees home range overlapped with the Gnatcatchers territory. Photographed in the...

Canyon Towhee (Melozone fusca subsp. texanus) Sexes similar. Photographed in an urban setting with the surrounding area being over grazed desert grassland of the Chihuahuan Desert with scattered cacti and desert shrubs at ca. 1,239 m (4,060 ft) elevation. Marathon, Brewster County, Texas, USA.

Canyon Towhee formerly known as the Brown Towhee (Melozone fusca texanus) Twelve subspecies have been described while two are consistently placed in synonym leaving ten recognized subspecies. Two of these are mapped for Texas. Subspecies texanus is mapped for Central and Southwest Texas while...

One of the problems with living in the desert is the lack of green grass. We keep our grass to a very small area due to the lack of water. The Canyon Towhee is our most prolific resident towhee (we also get Green-tailed and Abert's). Towhees tend to stick low to the ground, so he never really...

Large sparrow with gray-brown upperparts, pale gray underparts, a large central breast spot, and white belly patch. Crown is rust-brown. Tail is long with brown undertail coverts. Sexes are similar.

Very common in my area. I had three at my house the morning I took the picture. They are one of the few birds that will stay and eat as I fill the feeder.

A Canyon Towhee in molt, hopping around some picnic benches at the Boy Scout Camp in Ajuga Canyon, near Fort Davis.

We had a great weekend in the amazing Chiricahua Mountains. More photos on my website at: http://richardfray.topcities.com