Saturday, June 7, 2008

Eastern Towhee


I've seen 2 Towhees this spring, but came up with only one o.k. photo, and luckily you can see the red eye.

The Eastern Towhee has red eyes across most of its range, but the towhees in Florida and extreme southern Georgia have pale straw-colored eyes. Eye color is variable from southern Alabama to southeastern North Carolina, with the most variability in Georgia and coastal South Carolina. This pattern may reflect the fact that the pale-eyed form, which was isolated when Florida was an island during the Pleistocene era, is now coming back in contact with the red-eyed form of the mainland.
Source: All About Birds

2 comments:

Sandpiper (Lin) said...

Oh, he's beautiful! I like his perch. I don't think I've ever seen one in a tree. I always see them on the ground. I recently had a female visit one of my feeders. I had never seen a female before so I was excited. She never came back though.

Shelley said...

You CAN see the red eye - nice shot! And he looks so nice and plump!