Over the past few months, I’ve been lucky enough to have quite a variety of birds hanging around in my yard. There have been several interesting winter time visitors, like the oven bird, and some who are migrating through like the house wren. There are also quite a few who have taken up residence and by far the most handsome of them is the Eastern towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus). I first noticed him late last summer, and thought he might be an early migrant, but he has stuck around. At first he was very shy, but he has gotten somewhat used to me. He’s still not exactly outgoing, but at least he comes out of the underbrush when I’m around. Last week there was a second, very shy one, that I hope is a female, but I couldn’t get a good enough look to see for sure (it could have been a competitive male). I’ve not seen it since, so at this point only they know for sure.