Bird name:

Canyon Towhee

Pipilo fuscus

Order

PASSERIFORMES

Family

Sparrows (Emberizidae)

Code 4

CANT

Code 6

PIPFUS

ITIS

179293

Breeding Location:

Bushes, shrubs, and thickets, Mountains

Breeding Type:

Monogamous, Solitary nester, Mates for life

Breeding Population:

Egg Color:

Light green or blue with black and brown marks

Number of Eggs:

2 - 6

Incubation Days:

Egg Incubator:

Female

Nest Material:

Stems, grass, and sticks., Lined with leaves, bark pieces, and mammal hair.

Migration:

Nonmigratory

RECOMMENDED PRODUCTS

General

Canyon Towhee: Large sparrow with gray upperparts, pale gray underparts, a large central breast spot, and white belly patch. Crown is rust-brown. Tail is long with brown undertail coverts. Sexes are similar.

Range and Habitat

Canyon Towhee: Found in Arizona, New Mexico, West Texas, Colorado and Mexico. Prefers dry hill country and desert canyons.

Breeding and Nesting

Canyon Towhee: Two to six light green or blue eggs with brown and black markings are laid in a cup nest made of stems, grass, and sticks, lined with leaves, bark pieces, and mammal hair, and built in a shrub or tree, usually 3 to 12 feet above the ground. Eggs are incubated for 11 days by the female.

Foraging and Feeding

Canyon Towhee: Eats seeds and insects. Forages by double-scratching on the ground in soil or leaf litter.

Readily Eats

Cracked Corn, Peanuts, Nut Meats

Vocalization

Canyon Towhee: Song is one or two introductory chips followed up by series of accelerating chips, "chili, chili, chili, chili." Call is a nasal slurred "chud-up."

Similar Species

Canyon Towhee: California Towhee has rust-brown crown and grayer upperparts. Abert's Towhee is buff and has black area around bill.

Percevia^® Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The Percevia field guides, database and search protocol patent pending.

The best bird guide and bird watching search engine to identify birds!

Bird Call Credits: The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Martyn Stewart, http://www.naturesound.org, Redmond, Washington USA. The reuse or copying of bird calls in this database is strictly forbidden.

Underparts

Belly, undertail coverts, chest, flanks, and foreneck.

Undertail coverts

Small feathers that cover the areas where the retrices (tail feathers) attach to the rump.

Upperparts

Back, rump, hindneck, wings, and crown.

Belly

The ventral part of the bird, or the area between the flanks on each side and the crissum and breast. Flight muscles are located between the belly and the breast.

Breast

The upper front part of a bird.

Crown

The crown is the top part of the birds head.

4 and 6 letter alpha codes

The four letter common name alpha code is is derived from the first two letters of the common first name and the first two letters of common last name. The six letter species name alpha code is derived from the first three letters of the scientific name (genus) and the first three letters of the scientific name (species). See (1) below for the rules used to create the codes..

Four-letter (for English common names) and six-letter (for scientific names) species alpha codes were developed by Pyle and DeSante (2003, North American Bird-Bander 28:64-79) to reflect A.O.U. taxonomy and nomenclature (A.O.U. 1998) as modified by Supplements 42 (Auk 117:847-858, 2000) and 43 (Auk 119:897-906, 2002). The list has been updated by Pyle and DeSante to reflect changes reported by the A.O.U from 2003 through 2006.

Field Guide to Birds of North America