Louise Parker wrote (and I forgot to postpone my mail, or maybe I couldn't
bear to):

>Here's my question. I have been watching a group of birds (maybe a dozen,
>though I rarely see more than 2 or 3 at a time) in my backyard for the last
>month or so. They are the same size as rufous-sided towhees, but have dark
>eyes and are mostly brown in color-- some mottling on the breast and some
>seem to have a slightly lighter patch in the center of the breast. Their
>tails are black with the same white markings as rufous-sided, and the heads
>are darker too (though not as black as those of the rufous-sided). Their
>behavior is also like the RS (sorry, don't know the official code!), mostly
>scratching around on the ground but occasionally getting up on the feeder to
>eat.

These are juvenile Rufous-sided Towhees, Louise. My yard's full of them
too (well, there's a few). They don't look so much like the juvenile
pictured in the National Geographic Society guide because we have the
darkest subspecies of RSTO here.

Dennis Paulson, Director phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416