Rufous-sided Towhee was recently splint by the American Ornithological Union
(AOU) into two distinct species, Eastern Towhee and Spotted Towhee. This
split was based on many morphological and biochemical criteria. Most notably
Spotted Towhees have white spots on their wing coverts, Eastern Towhees do not.
Eastern Towhees sing "drink your teeeeeeeeeee," Spotted Towhees simply sing
"Teeeeeeeeeeeee."

Lumping and splitting is part of the taxonomic trade for ornithologists. We
bird hobbiests get caught in the shuffle.


>
>I am a longtime amateur birder and a very recent subscriber to tweeters.
>One of the first interesting things that I learned from some of you is
>that our towhees are to be called 'spotted' and not 'rufous sided'
>towhees. I would like to know why this name change, since to me they
>obviously have rufous sides, but I have yet to appreciate spots, except on
>the pictures of immatures in our birdbook. Also, our birdbooks, not
>ancient, still name them 'rufous.' I have always thought them to be one
>of the most handsome birds, and also to be very appropriately named.
>
>This has been "bugging" my birdbrain for two months!
>
>Dave Heywood
>Kirkland
>dheywood at u.washington.edu
>
>
>

--
*********************************** I got the blues so bad one time
* Mike Patterson, Astoria, OR * it put my face in a permanent frown
* mpatters at orednet.org * but I am feelin' so much better
*http://www.pacifier.com/~mpatters* I could cake-walk into town