spotted towhee ~ 01/19/14 ~ Black Hill

spotted towhee

Pipilo maculatus

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Considering I still have my bird books out, I might as well continue with the crappy bird photos... hop, hop, hop, nah, nah, nah, you can't get a good shot.  This is a new sp. to Nature ID.  Except for its shape, it looks nothing like the related California towhee.  I like this striking bird, which reminds me more of a bolder and more colorful dark-eyed "Oregon" junco.  What would be the evolutionary advantage of the dark executioner's hood that many birds seem to have?

CA towhee ~ 12/02/10 ~ at home

California towhee perched on coast Douglas-fir
Pipilo crissalis perched on Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii
Pinaceae

Have I mentioned my bird photos are generally lousy? My fuzzy pictures of this Pipilo from July were way better than what I was able to capture today. I don't think I have the patience (or camera) to get really great photos of birds. These two visited our balcony and stayed for the longest time, until I had Andy hand me the camera through the window and I started the camera with the "bling" sound. All the commotion scared them away to the nearby tree. Argh! While I had the camera out, I tried to capture a Townsend's warbler, but it was too quick in the branches. Heavy sigh. My goal for the next year is to capture better bird photos.

ps 12/06/10 - And yes, it is this green around here and fairly warm. A light sweater is all I need to be comfortable enough outdoors in December. While I love the pics many nature bloggers post of snow, I'm glad to not have to endure that kind of cold weather.

CA towhee ~ 07/10/10 ~ at home

California towhee
Pipilo crissalis

Can you get any more plain, brown-grey? Both males and females look like this. It's taken me a while to capture a few fuzzy photos of this bird. Again, thanks to a friend, I finally figured out who was making an early morning (anywhere from 4:45-5:30 a.m.) very loud, very high-pitched, chip, chip, chip - it sounds like a smoke detector that needs new batteries, but quicker in succession.

There are a couple towhees around and I think this is the individual that wakes me up. It's one of the few birds I can actually hear while I'm sleeping, so it's been my alarm clock since before June. I have an odd, one-ear hearing impairment, and if I'm sleeping on my "good" ear I cannot hear most plug-in alarm clocks (huge problem in college after late nights of studying), my husband's occasional snoring (conveniently useful), and many other noises. It reminds me of the story E.O. Wilson wrote about how his hearing impairment kept him away from ornithology and his nearsightedness led him to entomology. I understand.

On a similar train of thought, during a visit to a history of Impressionism exhibit in Rome this spring, Andy and I postulated that Claude Monet was nearsighted for most of his life and then developed the typical age-dependent loss of close-up clarity. His paintings seemed to reflect his change in vision as he aged. I think Monet was painting what he was literally seeing.