birdologist: fini california towhee

Sunday, January 15th, 2017

birdologist:

fini california towhee

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Tags: when I was little, this was the first bird I tried to identify, as a birder I mean, not as a casual oh there's a duck there's a crow kind of person, based on the location where I remember it happening, it was maybe in 1971, when I was 9 years old, it was called a brown towhee in those days, though I failed to identify it that time, since as it turned out, i was trying to use a field guide that only showed birds east of the mississippi, and this bird wasn't in it, i tried hard to make my bird into a catbird, the rusty undertail coverts were right, but the color was wrong, i wore that book out looking for something that matched, before telling myself okay, it must be a catbird then, so i was wrong, but the effort involved is probably why I still remember watching that bird, the way it hopped down the dirt road ahead of me, it's just a dumb story, but I think of it pretty much every time I see a california towhee. Posted in Tumblr by jbc | Permalink | No Comments »