(Photos and story by Pam Hunt)

The boldly marked Eastern Towhee (called the Rufous-sided Towhee before being split into eastern and western species) is New Hampshire’s largest member of the sparrow family. Males are conspicuous as they perch high on a shrub or small tree and belt out their “drink your teeeeeeeeee” song, sometimes well into the middle of the day. When not singing, towhees spend their time on or near the ground in dense thickets, where you’re most likely to hear their “che-wink” call (also rendered as “tow-wee”) instead of seeing them. They are also noisy foragers, kicking backwards with both feet to search for insects underneath dead leaves.

Towhees are a species of early successional habitats, and like other such species, their populations are in steep decline across most of the range (Figure 1). They probably reached their peak abundance in the late 1800s or early 1900s when abandoned farmland was being replaced with shrubs. Some of those shrublands continued to mature into forest while others, especially in southern New Hampshire, were developed for commercial or residential purposes. Today, most of the state’s towhees are in powerline cuts and pine barrens. A few are also found regularly on low rocky mountaintops dominated by low shrubs (e.g., blueberries) and sometimes in brushy bogs (e.g., NH Audubon’s Ponemah Bog Sanctuary). The good news is that most of these habitats are actively managed to prevent reversion to mature forests, so towhees are likely to persist, just in numbers significantly lower than 50-60 years ago. Towhees are now rare north of the White Mountains.

Towhees in the northern half of their range, including New Hampshire, migrate to the southeastern United States each fall. Here they join birds that don’t migrate at all, and both populations mix together in foraging flocks. In March and April, the resident birds are preparing to breed just as the migrants start to return north, thus limiting the potential for more intense resource competition. As our climate warms, more and more towhees linger into the winter in the northern portion of their breeding range, including New Hampshire. Numbers vary depending on the severity of the winter seem to be on the increase.

By mid-to-late April, breeders have returned to New Hampshire, and shortly thereafter will build their nests on the ground in dense thickets. The 3-5 eggs hatch in two weeks, and the chicks leave the nest after another 10-11 days. Juvenile towhees are much more sparrow-like than their parents and can pose an identification challenge for beginner birders. They start gaining the bold adult plumage by late August; however, the period of confusion is relatively short.

State of the Birds at a Glance:

• Habitat: Shrublands
• Migration: Short-distance
• Population trend: Strongly declining
• Threats: Habitat Loss and Fragmentation, Habitat maturation
• Conservation actions: Manage early successional habitat

More information on “The State of New Hampshire’s Birds” is available here. Full species profiles in the format of “Bird of the Month” are now available here.