Spotted towhee
A large sparrow with red eyes that scratches through leaf litter under thick shrubs.
NPS describes the spotted towhee as about 7 inches long with a white-spotted black back and rump, a black chest, white belly and reddish-brown sides. Its most distinctive feature is red eyes set in black plumage.
It lives in dry thickets, forest edges and canyon bottoms with dense shrub cover. Its preferred diet is insects, acorns, berries and seeds, and it can eat crops such as oats, wheat, corn and cherries. It hops, scratches at the ground or vegetation, and pounces on food it finds.
Because it stays low in cover, listen for the rustle of scratching in the leaf litter before you look. Stay on trails so you do not trample the shrub cover the bird depends on.
How to recognize it
Black head, back and chest, white belly, reddish sides, white spots on the back and red eyes.
Watching and staying safe
Listen for scratching in leaf litter; stay on trails.
Places the sources name
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