Spotted Towhee, Pipilo maculatus
Spotted Towhee, Pipilo maculatus curtatus. Photograph taken within a residential community in Hereford, Arizona, February 2007. Photograph and identification courtesy of Bob Behrstock, Sierra Vista, Arizona (naturewideimages.com).
Spotted Towhee, Pipilo maculatus oregonus. Photograph taken in coastal Oregon, July 2021. Photograph courtesy of Dr. Tom Bartol, Carlsbad, California.
The Spotted Towhee, Pipilo maculatus curtatus and Pipilo maculatus oregonus, are two of twenty-two subspecies of Spotted Towhee, seventeen of which are found in Mexico. They are a member of the Passerellidae Family of New World Sparrows, which has one hundred thirty-two global members placed in thirty genera, and one of five global species of the Pipilo Genus. They are also known as the Rufous-sided Towhee and the Oregon Towhee and in Mexico as rascador ojirrojo.
The Spotted Towhee is mid-sized in stature. They have moderate sexual dichromatism. Both sexes are similarly patterned with a dark hood, dorsum tail and wings, a white abdomen, reddish-brown sides and flanks, and a cinnamon crissum. Their scapular and tertials are streaked with white or yellow-white and they have two wing bars. Their bill is a uniform black to slate black with some birds having a dusky gray or brownish slate lower bill that is pale at the base; their iris is bright red, transitioning to dark red with maturity, and the legs and feet vary in color from brown and blackish brown to pinkish with darker claws and toes. Their tail is moderately long, rounded and has white patches on the corners. The females are paler and browner than the males.
The Spotted Towhee is found in broad leaf shrubby growth including brush, thickets, and tangles that are only a few meters tall. They are territorial ground foragers that are omnivores that consume insects and litter arthropods and acorns, fruits and small seeds on a seasonal basis. They are heavily preyed upon by both domestic and feral cats. They are found in the middle elevations and intermountain plateaus and with the Pacific Slope of coastal lowlands and offshore islands at elevations up to 2,135 m (7,000 feet). They are an intracontinental migrant with birds found in the northern United States being fully migratory and partly migratory and those found in southern latitudes being either altitude season migrators moving to lower altitudes or non-migratory. They are normally located by their song. They are monogamous. They have life spans of up to eleven years.
The Spotted Towhee is found in extreme northwest Baja California, in the northern latitudes of Chihuahua east to Tamaulipas, extending south in the central highlands to Guanajuato, Querétaro and northern Hidalgo, with isolated populations in Sinaloa and western Durango to northeast Nayarit and western Zacatecas, Hidalgo to Veracruz and eastern Puebla, northeast Morelos, southwest Tlaxcala and western Puebla and the highlands of northern and central Oaxaca and central and southeast Chiapas. The curtatus subspecies has not been formally documented to reside in Mexico however the bird photographed above puts this point into question as they are known to southeast Arizona. The oregonus subspecies is found from Southwest British Columbia south to Southern California.
From a conservation perspective the Spotted Towhee has not been formally evaluated but they are common, widely distributed and their populations appear to be stable. In some areas human development and related habitat destruction has driven towhees to extinction. In other areas they may coexist with humans or thrive in disturbed areas where agricultural and residential development is light or moderate. Habitat destruction by grazing cattle, heavy logging, land-clearing, and extensive fires have had significant impact on their populations.