Photo Study Of A Female Spotted Towhee At Palmyra Cove Nature Park February 21, 2010

A beautiful female Spotted Towhee has been hanging around the big pit of Palmyra Cove Nature Park since late November 2009. This is only the second sighting of this species in New Jersey for the past twenty-five years. It has been seen in the company of three Eastern Towhees as well as other sparrows. We arrived at Palmyra Cove about 8:30 AM this morning, walked to the pit area and were rewarded with a good half hour of posing by the Spotted Towhee.

Spotted Towhee Female

Spotted Towhee Female

And for comparative purposes here are images of the male and female Eastern Towhee seen at Palmyra Cove today:

Male Eastern Towhee

Female Eastern Towhee

The Spotted Towhee (Pipilo maculatus) is normally found west of the Mississippi River to the Pacific coast. It looks very much like its eastern relative, the Eastern Towhee. The Spotted Towhee is a large, striking sparrow of sun-baked thickets of the West. When you catch sight of one, they’re gleaming black above (females are grayish), spotted and striped with brilliant white. Their warm rufous flanks match the dry leaves they spend their time hopping around in. The birds can be hard to see in the leaf litter, so your best chance for an unobstructed look at this handsome bird may be in the spring,

 © Howard B. Eskin 2010                                  Please email your comments to hbeskin@voicenet.com                  Please click here to go back to Bird Webpage Index