The different foods that I’ve put out have brought a variety of new birds to my yard. One I’m excited about is the Eastern Towhee. Some of you might be scratching your heads and saying, “What the heck is an Eastern Towhee? That was me, until I did a talk for the Magnolia Garden Club in 2020.
The meeting was at my friend Signy Givens' house. As I was setting up my display, I happened to look in her backyard and see a bird sitting fat and sassy on a limb. I quickly grabbed my camera. But unfortunately when I tried to get close enough to take a good photo, he flew off! But, I was able to ID him from one slightly pixelated photo. After that day, it was my desire to have Towhees come to my yard. After all, Signy lived only a few blocks from me, so why wouldn’t they travel over to visit?
For two years, I never saw one in my neighborhood, but when I began to put out mealworms and Peanut Butter Delight suet, I had a visitor! I looked out my kitchen window to my feeder gazebo and saw a beautiful black head, throat and back with belly feathers that were brown and off white. I think it is a beauty! The female is very similar, but has brown head, throat and back with the belly feathers the same as the male.
He also has a talent for singing! As I work on my flowers I hear him and I must stop to listen to his song. It is sort of a funny song. “Drink your teeeeea.” “Drink” is said sharply and “tea” is sort of “drawled” out. I guess he’s Southern (smile). He is loud enough singing that his song rises above the other birds and so you take note of him.
In my opinion the Eastern Towhee is the prettier bird with the Spotted Towhee being second. The California Towhee and the Abert’s Towhee are very plain in their feathers. The Green-tailed Towhee is a very interesting looking bird, but not what I would call pretty. But, these other species don’t live in our area, so we can enjoy the prettier one.
Towhees will come to your feeders, but you must offer them something “special” to entice them to visit your yard. For me, it was my “Peanut Butter Suet.” In fact, they like it so well that they have now come to live in my shrubs.
Peanut butter isn’t their only food of choice, but it does seem to be the treat that draws. They also like sunflower chips, black oil sunflower seeds, millet, peanut pieces, regular suet dough, and cracked corn. I don’t offer all of these - especially not the corn because that draws squirrels and raccoons! I try to keep my food simple....black oil sunflower seed, peanut butter suet, a few mealworms and water. Now, I do offer hummingbirds their sugar water during the spring and summer, but that’s all.
I’m not saying that I won’t ever offer something different just to get new birds coming, but right now, these bought foods are enough. But, I do offer different plant foods in my yard such as berries and seeds and sweet nectar in my flowers, but my bought food budget is pretty much maxed out.
Even though they enjoy the additional treats that I offer, their main diet is insects! That’s what makes them very desirable to have in your yard. They forage mostly on the ground scratching through leaf litter searching for beetles, ants, spiders, snails, millipedes, caterpillars and moths - just to name a few! I like bugs to do their jobs in nature, but I also want them all to be controlled naturally. Birds having a good meal on them is nature at its best!
So as I “Look at the birds of the air...” Matthew 6:26, I am now very thrilled to see in my yard the Eastern Towhee eating my bugs!
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E-mail: birdieofmississippi@gmail.com My Blog: http://www.birdieofmississippi.blogspot.com
