A Green-tailed Towhee was found in Sackville on the Christmas Bird Count on 17 December, 2022. What an amazing species to find in our region and what a stroke of luck for the 3 birders who found it! This species occasionally strays away from its tight home range but they usually only make it to the central US and occasionally to the east coast from southern Maine to North Carolina. Sometimes they stray to the Great Lakes region. This record represents only the second time it has been found in New Brunswick. The previous was seen in Saint John in 2002 where it frequented a feeder area from January to mid-March. I saw it when it was first found on 11 January.
The Green-tailed Towhee (Pipilo chlorurus) is a member of the Passerellidae family (American sparrows). The 'Pipilo' is the name for the towhees and the 'chlorurus' identifies it as the Green-tailed Towhee. The full scientific name means 'colourful chirper'. This species was first described in 1839 by John James Audubon when he called it Fringilla chlorura. It has had 4 name changes since then.
The Green-tailed Towhee is the smallest of the towhees of which we have 9 species. These are large chesty sparrows with rather long rounded tails. Towhees are ground feeders and their flight is generally low to the ground and is several quick flaps followed by a short, flat-winged glide. Towhees usually show no sexual dimorphism which is the case in this species. The Green-tailed Towhee is the only entirely migratory towhee.
The Green-tailed Towhee is 15.7 to 18.0 cm long with the male being slightly larger than the female. Generally it looks like a large sparrow with a rusty cap, whitish throat, black malar stripe, and a greenish back and tail. More specifically the head shows a rusty crown; forehead, lores, and malar stripe gray to dark gray; supraloral and submoustachial stripes and chin and throat white; face gray or greenish-grey; nape, mantle and rump greenish-grey or greenish-brown; tail greenish tinged with yellow-olive; wing greenish olive with a yellow bend in the carpal edge. For the underparts, the chin and throat are white; bill is black but the base of the lower mandible can be white or bluish-white; legs and feet dull brown or grayish; iris dark reddish brown. Females are like the males but can be just slightly duller.
The first winter bird resembles the adult but with a duller crown. The juvenile is heavily streaked with dark brown and with a white throat with contrasting dark brown malar stripe. The tail and wings show a greenish cast.
The range on the Green-tailed Towhee is mostly the western and south-western US and Mexico. It breeds from south-central Oregon, south-eastern Washington, southern Idaho, south-central Montana, Wyoming and sometimes South Dakota south through California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico east to central and western Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas. It winters in the southern parts of California, Arizona and New Mexico southward as far as central Mexico. Preferred habitats include dry shrubby hillsides with low brush interspersed with trees and chaparral up to 2400 metres elevation. It likes sage brush and open piñon-juniper. In winter it prefers low weedy brush and dry gullies with mesquite.
Green-tailed Towhees are secretive birds like most towhees. They prefer to stay hidden in low thick vegetation. When disturbed they will fly low away or drop to the ground and run away looking like a mouse. In breeding season the male will show himself while he sings from the top of a shrub. The song starts with short introductory notes followed by trills. It can be described as a warbled 'wheeet clur cheeweee-churr' or sometimes it is a rapid wheezy sound. On listening to the play-back I could hear something similar to the 'tow hee' of the Eastern Towhee. The call note is a 'keek' sound or sometimes the bird makes a cat-like mewing sound.
Green-tailed Towhees nest on the ground or in low shrubs usually lower than 3 feet above ground. The nest is a large loose cup made of twigs, grasses, weeds, bark strips and lined with fine grasses, rootlets and animal hair. Three to four eggs are laid and are white with heavy brown to gray dotting on the large end. The female incubates the eggs 11 to 13 days. Green-tailed Towhees eat mainly insects and seeds. They will sometimes feed on berries and small fruits. They forage on the ground under thick vegetation where they scratch in the leaf litter often doing a 2-legged scratch. In their normally dry habitat they drink morning dew from the leaves. They will come to feeders but typically feed on the ground under the feeding tray.
Similar species do not occur here so one would have no trouble identifying this species (assuming a good knowledge of the field guides). In its native habitat a similar species is the Olive Sparrow but it is smaller and has a brown-striped crown.
Green-tailed Towhee populations have declined somewhat probably because of the conversion of their favourite mesquite habitat into agriculture lands. It does like burned-over land so our drier climate might favour this species. Presently in most of its range its population remains relatively stable.
A group of towhees is termed a 'teapot'. We would have to go to Arizona to see a teapot of Green-tailed Towhees but it is awfully nice to be able to see one here in NB today.
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