Not knew to anyone that has spent any time here on Intrigued, I am on “recovery road” trying get back on my feet after getting knocked down – a rare situation of that being metaphorically and literally. Not the first time down this road and likely not the last (some say I tend to push). This latest drive, the ankle, has proven to be one of the most debilitating injury to date. Even with the broken elbow (2 years ago), I was still able to lace up the trail shoes after a couple of weeks – this, has been a different story. Now at 8 months I am finally able to get out and get some miles in – admittedly through clinched teeth knowing every other stride is gonna come with a degree of pain. Yesterday I was listening to podcasts as I am apt to do to keep my head “out” of the run, when Mike Rowe’s podcast David Bahnsen – Poor Smart and Desperate came up next on the running playlist (link here). Next thing I know I am back at the Jeep after my longest run since the injury at 8 miles. The perfect topic at the perfect time. I won’t go into detail, but the topics of Macro happiness and producers vs consumers hit me right between the ears. It is easy to get yourself down when micro level issues don’t go as planned, but the question posed was whether I was happy at a macro level. 8 miles later (apparently) the answer was an absolutely YES. Sure, there are minutia/momentary bouts of unhappiness, the ankle, the elbow, paperwork here, malfunction there etc. but do those outweigh the good things – not even close. Family life is wonderful, great friends, recent checkup was outstanding, I’m out of the daily grind and we get to share our adventures while talking birds and haunts – Life is good. Oh, and on the producer front we now have our 3rd haunt how-to video out which I’ll share at the end if you are interested.
Few things make me happier than when I get to share a new check on the bird life list, so let me introduce you to today’s featured feathered friend.
Hit the jump to read more about this new check from the Sparrow family.
I am pretty sure this is a record for Intrigued as it is the THIRD Sparrow themed post in a row from me (Brad was able to spice it up a bit with a few of his adventures mixed in there). Today’s feature probably looks the most similar to the traditional members of that family – the ones that have the Sparrow indicator directly in their names. This however is one of the 6 Towhee subclass members.
In the previous Rufouspalooza post (link here), I commented that between Brad and I we had all the Towhees checked off. Brad having the distinction of tinning the California variety. In that post was the foreshadowing that the Canyon Towhee write-up was coming which would mean they were not all just tinned, but they would all have their time in the feature spotlight – no mystery here, that day has come.
Most Towhees tend to stick out in their family due to their splashes of color. The Spotted and Eastern are the flashiest adorned in their bright rufous/cinnamon and black colorings. The Green-Tailed have their own splashes of rufous and green/yellow tints and even the Abert’s have a distinctive black mask that make them easily identifiable in the field. The Canyon, eh, not so much. These Towhees prefer to be more discrete and blend into their preferred dessert scrub environment.
Californias are similarly bland, but fortunately these two Towhee species have little to no overlap with the California preferring to ride the big waves off the west coast versus the more traditional southeastern states and down into Central America for the Canyon. If you should need to distinguish those two, the California appears more overall grey than the Canyon and does not have the chest spot you can see in some of these pictures.
I’ve reference a “lifer” experience being like “breaking the seal” while enjoy a night of spirits (for clarity, not the haunt kind ha). It seems like whenever you see a particular species for the first time, you can’t stop seeing them from that point on. I’ll leave you to figure out the bar analogy. That is exactly the case with this Canyon Towhee. The very first time I encountered it was at an RV resort in Benson, Arizona back in January of 2024 (yes, I am that far behind in my processing, I know it, Linda knows it, Brad knows it, we all know it and now I am even further behind thanks to our latest Texas and Arizona trips). We had stopped there to spend a few days with friends from Linda’s dog training group that had moved out there to live full time in an their RV. Little did I know how incredible the birding would be there.
There were several washes in and around that resort that were absolutely full of great Arizona targets. We made a point to visit there longer this year so I could explore that area even more. Somewhat surprising, these Canyon Towhees were quite abundant in that wash area. The other Towhees tend to be heard and not seen as they stick to the heavy underbrush – especially those Green-Tailed. Their lack of coloring through evolution or design (your choice) fits this more open behavior as they can blend right into the brown grasses and soils that dominate their environment.
Luckily we are blessed with good vision and can pick out their movements along the ground easier than their potential predators. They do have that splash of rufous under their tail with the exception of the Green-Tailed which I joke must have had its head up its ass and got that detail on the top of their head instead.
Per the bar reference, we pretty much saw these Canyons at every stop we made the rest of the way through Arizona. The first two shots and the shot below were taken on the Sycamore Trail in Tucson and the one right above this was taken at Desert Museum. Sidebar, if you get a chance, we highly recommend visiting the Arizona-Senora Desert Museum located on the east side of Tucson. It is rather pricey and they do not have any reciprocating agreements with other museums, zoos or gardens. We hesitated at first not knowing what was there on our first stop, but did some research and decided to take a chance. In the end, glad we did as it very nicely done and they have my absolute favorite animal – the Ocelot.
Ooops, out of shots. Better get you a couple of interesting facts in appreciation for your time here. Not surprising to me, but Cornell notes that this Canyon Towhee and the California variety were once consider the same species and went by the name Brown Towhee. Thankfully they split if nothing else to get them a better name! Definitely similar in look, but DNA analysis led to their split in 1989. Lastly (Cornell is sadly lacking in cool facts on this one), the Canyon will align their two nesting cycles per year to the regional rain cycles in winter and summer. If there is someone from Cornell reading this, you might want to reconsider this line “They look very similar to the widespread California Towhee” as that does not align with your own region maps.
Lastly, though I would share the latest video from our haunt department. We originally thought these would get easier to make as time went on. Tim (at Off Center and Not Even – link here) cautioned us on that opinion and turns out he is absolutely right as they are taking even longer now to produce! At least they are a lot of fun to do. If you are interested, check out our third video from the scare lab.
Take care everyone and thanks for coming by.
Life Intrigued 