A male spotted towhee has a black head, back and tail with a white belly, orange-red sides and multiple white wing marks. “I think that the first thing people notice is their sides,” David ...

Claim to fame: When males are in bright courtship plumage in spring, the Eastern towhee is one of the more interestingly marked birds you’ll see at forest edges and in old overgrown fields ...

The rufous-sided towhee, with its striking plumage, is a somewhat secretive member of the finch family that flits from beneath vegetation to visit feeders or scratch around in garden litter.