ML385859721
Spotted/Eastern Towhee (Rufous-sided Towhee) Pipilo maculatus/erythrophthalmus
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age and sex
- Unknown age, Male - 1
- Sounds
- Call
- Playback
- Not specified
Media notes
SPTO-like call. Need to look into EATO call variation and plasticity, as well as SPTO subspecies group call differences. Call might be suggestive of Great Plains ssp of SPTO.
Observation details
**MEGA: Identification has come down to either pure Eastern Towhee or hybrid Eastern x Spotted Towhee. Heard first at around 8:40 as we were walking east down Calexico Ave, and Max and Tim identified it as a SPTO. Bridget then spotted the bird on the street corner with Heber St. next to the house (at these coordinates: 32.6193845, -116.1871003) and immediately called it to our attention, identifying it as a possible EATO. We lost the bird at 9:00, until Mel found it at in the yard at those coordinates from along the lane behind the houses on Calexico. It stayed in this general area until we left, often using the makeshift water features in the yard and disappearing for short periods of time. **Do not view the yard from Calexico Ave.** There are some homeowners who were quite vocal about not wanting a "party" along the street. The bird is usually viewable from the lane paralleling Calexico or Heber St. anyways. As far as we can tell, this bird is visually identical to an Eastern Towhee. It lacked any white on the scapulars and coverts, but had extensive white at the base of the primaries and some on the tertial tips. Its eye was also very dark, appearing black in most lighting. However, it was giving both typical EATO calls (a brighter, higher-pitched "chweep") and calls reminiscent of SPTO (a complaining, lower-pitched "vvurrip"). We are used to SPTO from coastal San Diego, which usually give a slightly trisyllabic "vve-urrrip” or an overslurred “vvriir,” so Bridget noticed from the first call that it sounded different. It switched between these two very different calls often, sometimes one immediately following the other, with very few intermediate calls. Unfortunately, we were only able to record the SPTO-like call, so any recordings of any call this bird gives would be helpful for identification, especially the EATO-type call. The identification will come down to these factors: - whether these SPTO-type calls could be plastic or variant EATO calls - whether the SPTO-type calls are in line with the SPTO subspecies occurring in the hybrid zone - whether a pure EATO could conceivably learn SPTO calls - whether a hybrid SPTO x EATO could look so similar to one of the two species (based on what experts from the hybrid zone have told us, this is possible and has happened) - and if all else fails, DNA
Additional species
Technical information
- Recorder
- Microphone
- Accessories
- Original file size
- 7.86 MB