Black, orange and white...striking in the snow!

As snowflakes tumbled, drifted and fell, sticking to anything that didn't move (including me), I kept my camera lens trained on an American Tree Sparrow as he picked seeds from withered and dried goldenrod flower heads. It was quiet and lovely, with just the sweet calls of American Tree Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos, White-crowned Sparrows and Carolina Chickadees around me. As I watched the American Tree Sparrow through the lens, a sudden flash of orange burst through the background. What? I quickly looked up from my camera, and there in front of me sat a handsome and regal male Eastern Towhee...

An Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) looks dashing in the snow. His deep black, rufous, and bright white plumage are especially striking with snowflakes falling all around him.

Eastern Towhees are year-round birds in our area, but we don't normally see them in our backyard. Towhees really aren't suburban birds. They like the deep leaf litter found in shrubby forest edges or open woodlands, and while some come to feeders, most shy away from humans. So I was excited and happy to see this beautiful bird. I've been adding bushes and brushy areas to our yard for years trying to create the perfect "birdy" habitat. Maybe it's starting to work. The towhee was foraging in a tangle of weeds, grasses and shrubs under our weeping willow tree. Ideal habitat for the bird...

An Eastern Towhee faces into the wind and falling snowflakes. 

It looks like this fella took a nip of snow from the small accumulation beside him, but the visible ice crystals on his face really resulted from rooting for seeds just a moment earlier in snow-covered weeds on the ground. 

Eastern Towhees like to scrabble and scuffle in the leaf litter on the ground, so it was nice to see him come up to less snow-covered branches to pose for the camera! :-)

I have to admit. I still let "Rufous-sided" Towhee slip when naming this bird. I learned the bird as a Rufous-sided Towhee as a teen and can't seem to shake it. The name was changed in 1995 to Eastern Towhee...could someone please tell my brain that?

For having the same black and rufous-colored plumage of an American Robin, it's amazing how different the birds look. Even from a distance the silhouette of the towhee clearly marks it as a different bird, and when you throw in the tail bobbing, spreading and flicking a towhee is so famous for, there's no question...

...the famous tail bobbing of an Eastern Towhee! 

Remember that bird painting challenge I'm working on?

...apparently I forgot about it, but I'm back on track with paintbrush in hand. It seems lately I've done everything but paint birds. We were on vacation on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina for two weeks, and that was wonderful. I visited Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge a lot and have tons of photos. The rookery was a lot different this year compared to last year, and I saw a few new birds there this year too. My poor Cincinnati birds are going to feel left out because I'll probably go straight from posting Florida birds to South Carolina birds...

Before I get to the photos, here are my catching-up-to-the-challenge paintings. They are very fast sketches, and I think I had better get used to painting fast if I want to have any hope of making 100 in a year. I should be a bit beyond 50 now, but I'm only at 37!

Painting 37 - Eastern Towhee

Painting 36 - Eastern Towhee in Orange

This one was fun. I just wanted to create a flat form

with color. I normally pay attention to detail, but I wanted

to leave that style behind for a while...

Painting 35 - Willet in the Gulf

Painting 34 - Eastern Kingbird in the High Meadow

(From the High Meadow at Voice of America Park)

Painting 33 - Prothonotary Warbler painting study

This was a five-minute value study for an earlier painting. After I figured out how to work out the real painting, I tossed this on the floor and forgot about it. A couple of days later I saw it on the floor and picked it up and scribbled over the top of it with pastels and charcoal, really grinding the pigment into the paper. Then I stuck it under the faucet and doused it with water, washing a lot of the pigment off and soaking the paper completely--I have no idea why. It ended with an old-fashioned fabric feel that I liked, so I decided to use it in the challenge.

Indigo Buntings at Kelley Nature Preserve

Rick and Matty played hockey together today at the Indian Hill Winter Club. This is the first time father and son have been on a team together. Matty is now old enough, good enough, and big enough to play in a men's non-checking hockey league, and yahoo to the fact the league is at the Indian Hill Winter Club--the most beautiful of all the hockey rinks in Cincinnati. Any hockey mom will tell you "beautiful" and "hockey rink" rarely fit together in the same sentence, but this time it's true. The Indian Hill Winter Club looks like a rustic ski lodge plucked right out of the wilds of Montana. Complete with two huge stone fireplaces and a cozy lounge, the Indian Hill Winter Club always gets a thumbs up from the moms, but.......I don't care about the bar, the food or the cozy leather couches--at all. I get excited because it's the only hockey rink in Cincinnati located on the banks of a reclaimed gravel pit that is deep and wide and attracts lots and lots of ducks...and recently has been hosting an American Bald Eagle or two. Even better, it's only two minutes away from one of my favorite birding spots, the Kelley Nature Preserve.

Today, after dropping Rick and Matty off at the rink, I hightailed it over to the preserve. The clouds above were dark and threatening, but I knew I could get a little birding in before the heavens let loose. I had about 35 minutes before the game would begin (and I could always be a little late...there are three periods after all). As soon as I pulled into the parking lot I could hear two Eastern Towhees singing back and forth in the trees to the left of the gazebo. What a beautiful call. With one of the most memorable mnemonics, the Eastern Towhee's "Drink your tea....." song always makes me happy. I spotted the orange, black and white high in the tree and listened for a while, eventually moving on to the path north of the gazebo that leads to the meadow. I was hoping to find Indigo Buntings at the forest opening, and they were everywhere.

A male Indigo Bunting was singing near the forest's edge. He would fly out into the meadow and sing, only to return to his perch high in the tree.

Can you tell this is a different male in a different spot. He is smoother and farther along in his molt. He was chipping back and forth with his mate, flying from branch to branch.

...here is his sweet little mate. I first heard her chipping in the brush and found her in a small snag near where the tree limb hangs low over the trail at the meadow's edge as it re-enters the forest. Even though she lacks the brilliant blue of the male, she is so pretty, and I love her gorgeous eyes.

...the same little female flies up into the dead tree rimming the edge of the trail. Both birds would meet up and follow each other from branch to branch, constantly chipping to each other.

...yet another male Indigo Bunting. He was near the beginning of the meadow, in the area where all the saplings are growing. At one point there were four males hollering out their song in trees at the four corners of the meadow. It was wonderful to hear.

As I was leaving the meadow, a flock of 14 Cedar Waxwings, singing and squeaking overhead, flew into a large Mulberry tree and started to devour the berries. The mulberries weren't even ripe yet, but the waxwings didn't seem to mind.

I love the metallic squeaking and constant motion of a flock of Cedar Waxwings as they move through a tree eating the berries. The two birds on the left were feeding each other berries, never sitting still...

Kelley Nature Preserve is a small woodland of only 42 acres, but it hugs the Little Miami River (now you know why I love it) and is very close to the Indian Hill greenbelt. Surrounded by trees, it seems to be a magnet for migrating warblers. Every time I go there I spot something cool. I've seen more Ovenbirds there than anywhere else (I love that little orange stripe on their heads)...and Magnolia Warblers too... Raindrops started to fall, so I headed out. I think I got about 40 minutes of birding in. I'll take it!

...father and son on the ice together for the first time. Matty did so well, even grabbing the puck for a breakaway--and shooting and scoring--yeah!

Eastern Towhee...that beautiful red eye gets me every time!

Birding Hocking Hills in Southeastern Ohio

...continued from the Grey Catbird post.

Gravel crunching under my feet is always a good sound. Crunch, crunch, crunch…I love it, but that morning it was obscuring the “witchety—witchety —witchety—woo” of my suddenly new favorite bird, the Common Yellowthroat. Sidestepping into the soft, green grass, my footsteps quieted, allowing me to listen to the yellowthroat's song fade as I left the meadow and headed into a brushy, wooded edge. On my left, the watery sounds of the slow-moving Clear Creek led me down the path and made me smile. Every now and then, I'd stop and peer over the edge just to make sure the water was still clear (and maybe see a Great Blue Heron or Kingfisher). Further down the path, I slowed as I inhaled that musty wet-wood smell that clings in the air around old wooden structures and was not surprised when I saw a worn footbridge up ahead. Not hurrying over it, I enjoyed the scent and the scenery, but eventually moved on. Only two steps off the bridge, however, a familiar scuffing and scraping sound made me stop. To my right I could see a glimpse of a rufous side through the breaks in the leaves. Quiet and still, I watched as he kicked through the leaf litter. Suddenly, he popped up on a branch, eye-level, and sang, and it wasn’t the definitive “Drink your tea-eeee” song I love to hear the Eastern Towhees sing. It was another song, very pretty, and as he sang, he didn't see me as I admired how the red of his eyes intensified each time he moved through a beam of sunlight. But soon enough he heard me, because at the first click of the camera's shutter, he looked my way. I assumed he would bolt, but he didn’t. He listened as I clicked again…and again, more curious than wary, his extraordinary red eye glowing like a tiny glass marble lit from the inside.

The most cooperative Eastern Towhee I've ever seen!

"Look at me...look at my gorgeous eye...

I'll even sing for you."

Clear Creek Metro Park was fast becoming

the Pinckney Island of the midwest!

Eventually the Eastern Towhee started singing

his beloved "Drink your tea-eeee" song.

Singing his "other song," his feathers were quite

ruffled. I think he was telling another male Eastern

Towhee to move on and find his own territory.