{"id":69356,"date":"2020-05-03T06:00:10","date_gmt":"2020-05-03T12:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/?p=69356"},"modified":"2025-10-26T07:32:34","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T12:32:34","slug":"green-tailed-towhees-are-migrating-into-utah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2020\/05\/03\/green-tailed-towhees-are-migrating-into-utah\/","title":{"rendered":"Green-tailed Towhees Are Migrating Into Utah"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Green-tailedGreen-tailed Towhee male singing on sage \u2013 Nikon D500, f7.1, 1\/800, ISO 500, +0.3 EV, Nikkor 500mm VR with 1.4x TC, natural light<\/span><\/p>\n

One year ago today I “whooped” out loud when I spotted my first of the year Green-tailed Towhee singing as he perched in top of a sagebrush.<\/p>\n

On my last couple of trips out into the field I have been listening for these big, rufous crowned sparrows because I have been expecting their return to the mountains, canyons, sagebrush steppes, and pinyon-juniper forests that I explore while looking for birds to photograph.<\/p>\n

If I didn’t know birds like I do I wouldn’t think that this species was in the sparrow family because of their large size and their colorful plumage but they are.<\/p>\n

The photo above was the Green-tailed Towhee I found last year and I hadn’t shared it here before because I was frustrated by the out of focus sagebrush stem at the bottom of the frame and how the angle of the sun created a shadow on the towhee’s breast.<\/p>\n

Those issues may have been resolved by moving a few feet further north. I would have had more of a side view of the towhee but the shadow on the bird’s breast wouldn’t have been quite so pronounced because my angle of view would have changed, even if ever so slightly.<\/p>\n

I know of a few places where Green-tailed Towhees have been abundant in previous years so while they are here for their breeding season this year I plan on spending plenty of time looking for them.<\/p>\n

During the early part of their breeding season the males spend a large portion of their time singing<\/span><\/a> to attract mates. The rest of the time they are here in Utah they can be much harder to see and photograph. Towhees can be quite skulky.<\/p>\n

I know that the next time I go out into the field I will be listening for the whistles and trills of Green-tailed Towhee songs and the mewing calls<\/span><\/a> they make in the shrubs and bushes.<\/p>\n

By the way, I wanted to thank you all for your kind, supportive comments on my post yesterday. I appreciate all of them and you.<\/p>\n

One of my friends, Kathleen Roach, suggested writing a book which was kind of fun because almost immediately after I published my post yesterday I did a Google search on “how many words does any average book have?” and some of the results say between 90,000 and 100,000 words.<\/p>\n

I typically try to have my posts over 300 words each but quite often they have far more words that that. So if I multiply 1827 posts times 300 words I come up with 548,100 which would be the equivalent of about 5 1\/2 to 6 books.<\/p>\n

That would have covered just the last five years. If I did that for every post I have ever done which to date is 3256, it comes out to 976,800 words. Which means I could have written ten to eleven books during the time I have been blogging!<\/p>\n

Just an interesting tidbit. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Life is<\/em> good. Stay safe.<\/p>\n

Mia<\/p>\n

Click here<\/span><\/a> to see more of my Green-tailed Towhee photos plus facts and information about this species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One year ago today I “whooped” out loud when I spotted my first of the year Green-tailed Towhee singing as he perched in top of a sagebrush.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":161850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,2212,4594,26,773],"tags":[1023,3905,2048,4062,6152,9819,2303,5743,2817,4057,4179,855,4195,5908,4854],"class_list":["post-69356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avian","category-green-tailed-towhees","category-morgan-county","category-utah","category-wasatch-mountains","tag-frustrations-in-bird-photography1","tag-green-tailed-towhee","tag-light-angle","tag-male","tag-obstructions","tag-out-of-focus","tag-pipilo-chlorurus","tag-recording","tag-sage","tag-sagebrush","tag-singing-2","tag-sparrow","tag-sparrows","tag-towhee","tag-towhees"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/green-tailed-towhee-male-singing-sage-mia-mcpherson-1470.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p11Mom-i2E","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":103119,"url":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/2022\/06\/09\/green-tailed-towhee-in-the-uinta-mountains\/","url_meta":{"origin":69356,"position":0},"title":"Green-tailed Towhee In The Uinta Mountains","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"June 9, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"While photographing Yellow-bellied Marmots in the high Uinta Mountains two days ago a Green-tailed Towhee popped into my view on top of a mound of sage.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Green-tailed Towhee peeking out of sage, Uinta Mountains, Uinta National Forest, Summit County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/green-tailed-towhee-adult-in-sage-mia-mcpherson-6465.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/green-tailed-towhee-adult-in-sage-mia-mcpherson-6465.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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Mountains","author":"Mia McPherson","date":"June 1, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"One good bird can make the the day when photographing birds in the field, yesterday that bird was a male Green-tailed Towhee I spotted perched on a shrub in a canyon in the Wasatch Mountains.","rel":"","context":"In "Birds"","block_context":{"text":"Birds","link":"https:\/\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/category\/avian\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Singing Green-tailed Towhee portrait, Wasatch Mountains, Morgan County, Utah","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/green-tailed-towhee-singing-portrait-mia-mcpherson-2737.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onthewingphotography.com\/wings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/green-tailed-towhee-singing-portrait-mia-mcpherson-2737.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, 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