Towhees, Our Southwest Sparrows

It's always an exciting moment when I'm outside and identify a bird for the first time.  Just this week I saw and photographed a green-tailed towhee at Phoenix' Desert Botanical Garden.  But a new find along with cooler desert weather weren't the only causes for excitement.  I soon realized that I had seen in my short time birding ALL the towhees that call the West their home.

Spotted, canyon, California, Abert's and now green-tailed were all the birds in the region known as towhees and I had found and shot each of them.  They are all either in the genus pipilo or melozone, totaling thirteen living species in the Americas, five of which are found in the western United States and are now known by me.  There's a great amount of satisfaction knowing I can skim over my Western Peterson Field Guide's towhee page, not needing to analyze the details at length anymore.

However on further analysis I discovered that towhees are in quite a large family of birds, the emberizidae.  Along with the towhees, it includes juncos.  No problem, my guide devotes only one page to juncos, and I've seen most of the relatively common dark-eyed variety along with the unique yellow-eyed species in southern Arizona's mountains.  But my glow of accomplishment dimmed when I learned the family also comprises all the American sparrows.

It seems like there are over a dozen species of this bird in Arizona including the black-throated sparrow in the desert and the rufous-crowned sparrow in the mountains.  Frustratingly, I'm still trying to distinguish the latter from a chipping, and have similar identification problems with many others.  Sparrows remind the avid birder that the avian class of animals is vast and varied.  There are thousands of species to discover, study and photograph outside your door.  And if you're lucky, you might just find your first green-tailed towhee on your next excursion, finally finishing a page on your long adventure.

Green-tailed towhee at Phoenix' Desert Botanical Garden.

Spotted towhee in Prescott.

Spotted towhee in Prescott.

Canyon towhee near Cordes Junction.

Canyon towhee in north Scottsdale.

California towhee in Simi Valley.

California towhee in Simi Valley.

Abert's towhee in Phoenix.

Abert's towhee in Phoenix. This individual is leucistic, lacking full pigmentation.

Dark-eyed junco in Flagstaff.

Yellow-eyed junco in Madera Canyon.

Chipping sparrow in Prescott. Or is it a rufous-crowned sparrow?  I'm not sure, but will hopefully some day know as much about sparrows as their cousins the towhees and the juncos.