Larch Creek Birds

What the birds (and frogs) are saying at a creek in western Washington
Plate 1
Spotted Towhee
Birds and Nature magazine, 1913 · No restrictions
Bird

Spotted Towhee

Pipilo maculatus
New World Sparrows (Passerellidae)
Year-round resident. Expected at the creek in every month.
Field marks
A big, long-tailed sparrow with a black hood, rusty flanks, white belly and white spots on the wings; red eyes, which it uses to look at you as if you owe it money.
Male & female
The male's hood is jet black; the female's is dark grey-brown.
Voice
A buzzy, rising 'chwee' or cat-like 'meew', and a song of two or three notes plus a trill: 'drink-your-teeeea'.
Diet
Seeds, insects and berries scratched up from leaf litter with a noisy two-footed backward hop, like someone looking for their keys in the dark.
Habitat
Dense shrubs, salal and blackberry tangles, forest edges, gardens.
Nesting
A cup on or near the ground in cover; 3–5 eggs.
Size
7–8½ in long, 1¼–1¾ oz: a golf ball, scratching in the leaves.

Year-round at the creek and one of its loudest voices. The rustling in the salal is a towhee; it is nearly always a towhee.

Season how expected it is here, week by week

50%100%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecheard at the creektoday
Fig. 1. BirdNET's range model for this location: the chance this species is present in each week of the year. Orange ticks mark weeks it has actually been heard at the creek; the dashed line is today.

At the creek 100 calls on 4 days, first Oct 28, last Oct 31

122500:00 — 0 calls001:00 — 0 calls02:00 — 0 calls03:00 — 0 calls304:00 — 0 calls05:00 — 0 calls06:00 — 0 calls607:00 — 0 calls08:00 — 0 calls09:00 — 6 calls910:00 — 11 calls11:00 — 18 calls12:00 — 3 calls1213:00 — 12 calls14:00 — 14 calls15:00 — 2 calls1516:00 — 7 calls17:00 — 25 calls18:00 — 2 calls1819:00 — 0 calls20:00 — 0 calls21:00 — 0 calls2122:00 — 0 calls23:00 — 0 callssunrisesunset
Fig. 2. When it calls: all detections by hour of day (today's sunrise and sunset shown).
2245Oct 2 — 0 callsOct 3 — 0 callsOct 3Oct 4 — 0 callsOct 5 — 0 callsOct 6 — 0 callsOct 7 — 0 callsOct 8 — 0 callsOct 9 — 0 callsOct 10 — 0 callsOct 10Oct 11 — 0 callsOct 12 — 0 callsOct 13 — 0 callsOct 14 — 0 callsOct 15 — 0 callsOct 16 — 0 callsOct 17 — 0 callsOct 17Oct 18 — 0 callsOct 19 — 0 callsOct 20 — 0 callsOct 21 — 0 callsOct 22 — 0 callsOct 23 — 0 callsOct 24 — 0 callsOct 24Oct 25 — 0 callsOct 26 — 0 callsOct 27 — 0 callsOct 28 — 14 callsOct 29 — 33 callsOct 30 — 8 callsOct 31 — 45 callsOct 31
Fig. 3. Calls per day over the last 30 days.

Recordings

Clearest recording · Oct 29 10:44 am · 99% sure
spectrogram
Recent · Oct 31 5:47 pm · 88% sure
spectrogram
Recent · Oct 31 5:21 pm · 89% sure
spectrogram
Recent · Oct 31 5:20 pm · 93% sure
spectrogram

From the encyclopedia

The spotted towhee is a large New World sparrow. The taxonomy of the towhees has been debated in recent decades, and until 1995 this bird and the eastern towhee were considered a single species, then named rufous-sided towhee. Another outdated name for the spotted towhee is the Oregon towhee. The call may be harsher and more varied than for the eastern towhee.
From Wikipedia, "Spotted towhee", CC BY-SA 4.0.