The Spotted Towhee

“The Spotted Towhee is a large, striking sparrow of sun-baked thickets of the West.”

Folding laundry yesterday, I heard a thud and the dog’s bark followed. With a few short steps to their guarding at the back door, I saw the enemy. A very small bird that I’ve longed loved since moving to the woods in Northern California, the spotted towhee. There they were, lying on their side with their wing pushed down under a stick. The spotted towhee signifies something very special to me. When we lived in the tiny house, we had a bird feeder on the deck that almost exclusively attracted this bird, and so it became our bird. As I’ve grown to love these flight-full magicians, Graham has too, and this was one of those first birds that we grew excitement over sighting, together. We would take turns calling 10 feet away to eachother “look look! a spotted towhee at the feeder”. We would also take turns forgetting the name and every other one that we saw, one of us would remember. It felt like team work, this spotted towhee watch we had going on in our little house in the woods. So, the spotted towhee reminds me of our love and our time in the tiny.

I crept open the back door making sure not to let the dogs out, and with equal parts giddy and dread, I grabbed for the little bird. I stood with it in my grasp as it nodded off. A gentle shake and it’s awake again. This continued for a few minutes and I found myself saying aloud “Stay with me buddy, stay with me.” As if we had known eachother our whole lives, I felt like I needed this bird to survive. Two weeks ago, I found my favorite chicken, Chickpea, had been surrendered to a hawk. It felt so unfair and it made perfect sense. Chickpea was my favorite because she was the loudest of the bunch. She made herself known to everyone with her unique vocalizations and she was the fiercest in the coop. I hated seeing her defeated like that, but she’s the only chicken that I could think of putting up a fight and so, she went out scathed and tattered. It really hurt. I know it’s just a chicken, but I felt like I failed her. If I had been home maybe I could have saved her.

The towhee was gripping my finger with its little claws. I began walking around thinking of what I should do with it, still murmuring to it to “hang on” and “don’t let me down.” It was shocked, of course, and I, too. To be up close with this bird, one I’d stared at countless times through my binoculars and admired the trio of colors interacting. When the spotted towhee takes flight, the little white flecks on it’s black wings create a flickering visual. It’s beady red eyes are rounded with an intricacy I could have stared into forever. I stroked its chest and took it all in before setting it down under the red maple tree.

I thought, maybe I’ll go and grab my camera and when I come back the spotted towhee will be gone. But it stayed and I picked it up again. It must have been such a profoundly strange moment for this bird. From one moment to the next it was flying, presumably chasing another bird or simply off to the next location, and suddenly there it sat in my hand listening to the shutters of my camera with a large black lens in front of its face. I hope it liked the warmth of my hand as I snapped on.

It’s in these instances where I can really lose myself to the present. It’s almost as if I wished a bird would hit the door everyday, with just enough force to let me hold it for 10 minutes and not enough to take its life. But it doesn’t work like that and if many birds were flying into my door I’d feel like there was a bad omen. So I soaked up the fleeting time I had with the spotted towhee and I placed it back under the maple tree. I grabbed some chicken food and laid it out, but the towhee was still trying to understand what just happened and stood in the mulch, still and curiously.

I went back inside and every five minutes I’d peer out of the kitchen window to see if it had taken flight. It’s not often you can see that stillness in an animal thats instinct is to flutter at any movement. Eventually, on one trip back to peer out of the window, it moved a couple feet, then jumped onto the rock that rimmed the edge of the garden bed, then looked around diligently at the surroundings, and in a second- took flight.

The spotted towhee stayed with me. It flew off, and I sighed in relief, for us.