There is a bird called the California towhee that is found in almost every yard. It is the most mundane of backyard residents: plain and brown, a chunky, clumsy member of the sparrow family that hops ...

I am in my mid-50s. Four decades of lawn-mowing, chain-sawing, weed-whacking, and snow-blowing have taken their toll on my hearing. As my fellow reporters point out to me -- sometimes gleefully, ...

Often missed by birders, particularly those of us who hear poorly, is one of our most attractive species — the eastern towhee. Until 1995, it was called the rufous-sided towhee, a very descriptive ...

There is so much we don’t see of even the most common birds’ lives. Take the California towhee, one of my favorite of all birds. They are found in nearly every yard in Marin: plain brown, large and ...

Last year I told you about a Baltimore oriole that was scratching on the ground under my birdfeeder. At the time you seemed skeptical saying, “It doesn’t sound like oriole behavior.” Well, the bird is ...

The eastern towhee is one of those birds that shows up erratically, and when it does show up is often overlooked. That is why a report from Thief River Falls caught my attention. Valerie Solem sent a ...