Next-Door Nature

Supermarket tabloids love just-like-us features so they pay paparazzi top dollar to catch somebodies acting like nobodies. Today I’m focused on the Towhees. They like to keep a low profile but I’m a pro and I know how to find them.

First Rule of Papping: Ya can’t tell the players without a scorecard! It also helps to know the aliases they use to create confusion and avoid detection. See, for a long time all the Towhee’s identified as Team Pipilo. Several years ago, however, about half of them left (were removed, actually) to form Team Melozone. Maybe the rift was media-created (fake news, so sad), or maybe the less flamboyant Towhees felt overshadowed by their more colorful and fashion-forward cousins… who knows? Towheestas, as their fandom are known, love to argue over the distinctions between and relative merits of the two tribes, as well as who should be a P and who definitely qualifies as an M.

Currently,  Team P include the Collareds (P. ocai),  the Green-taileds (P. chlorurus), the Easterns (P. erythrophthalmus), and the Spotteds (P. maculatus), but not so long ago both the Easterns and Spotteds were using the tag Rufous-sided (the Easterns got full custody of P. erythrophthalmus). Spotteds are also referred to in some circles as The Avians Formerly Known as Oregon or Socorro.

Similarly, and to keep things even-steven, Team M also has four members: the Aberts’ (M. aberti), the White-throateds (M. leucotis), the Canyons (M. fusca), and the Californias (M. Crissalis). Oh, but the Canyons and the Californias used to be one big happy tribe, the Browns, even though the Aberts’ and the Californias are probably closer relatives.

Got it all straight? Yeah, it’s a complicated family tree — that’s show biz. Try keeping track of the rest of the Sparrows, not to mention the Barrymores, the Fondas, and the Coppolas.

Second Rule of Papping:  Zoom in on the habitat. Finding out where your luminary lives is a crucial datapoint.  Some Towhees prefer to be on the right side of the continent (Easterns), some are Westerners (Californias, Green-taileds, and Spotteds), and there’s some who meet in the middle. Others Towhees prefer the Southwest (Canyons and Aberts’), or even south of the border in Mexico (Collareds & White-throateds).

When it comes to choosing a home base, the Easterns and Spotteds will always opt for a ground-floor unit, if available, ideally tucked in next to a log or of clump of grass to provide some privacy, but they’ll tolerate the higher perches (shrubs) preferred by the Californias, Canyons, and Green-taileds. The Aberts’ are the only Towhees who like to live in a tree-top high-rise. Not much is know about where the Collareds and White-throateds homestead because they’re a secretive bunch who’ve put down roots far from the limelight’s glare, in the more rural setting of Mexico’s mid-to-high altitude subtropical and tropical pine-oak forests. They’re a rare and lucrative shot but too remote for run-and-gun photography.

Improve your chances by becoming a regular at all of the places your subjects like to eat, including the local hipster farmers markets and upscale grocers, where they shop for household supplies, as well as favorite watering holes and spas. If you can get a neighborhood exposure you’re golden because that’s where life gets real. As the playground K-I-S-S-I-N-G song tells it, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a $700 Bugaboo carriage. Actually, these days marriage is an option, not a certainty. Regardless of the parents’ living arrangements and legal status, or lack thereof, nest/crib beta is pivotal for a paparazzo because editors drool when there are kids in the picture — Mommy & Me outings are always Money Shots.

Third Rule of Papping:  Know your subject inside as well as out. In other words, not just their look but the idiosyncratic behaviors that will tip you off to their presence, even when they’re not wearing breeding plumage. For example, you’ll want to know that all the Towhees like to forage for food using a unique two-footed backward hop, followed by a pert bend-and-snap. Well, I assume this includes those camera-shy Collared and White-throateds but who the hell knows. If the pickin’ are slim, or maybe too predictable, Spotteds will scan the shrubbery for snacks, and the Aberts’ have been known to poke around under the bark near the bottom of tree trunks for some grub.

Family comes first for the Canyons and Green-taileds, who have a reputation for forming long-term, monogamous pair-bonds. If a Green-tailed mom senses danger, she’ll bravely flee from home on foot with a conspicuously raised tail to attract and distract the predator’s attention from her children.

It will probably come as no surprise, that the Cali Crew has an ongoing love/hate relationship with their image — you’ll see them in front of a freshly washed window, handy car mirror, or any other reflective surface checking out their visuals or talking to themselves in a very critical, territorial tone. They’re not crazy, just a little left of center. They like to chill in stands of poison oak, feeling all cutting edge because this hangout hasn’t been “discovered” yet, gobbling up the pale berries as if they were caviar.

Last, but not least… shut up and get the shot. Sure, the relationship between some celebrities and the paparazzi is symbiotic— they get publicity, you get residuals. Towhees don’t play that. If you want to be successful with this dynasty you’ll stay quiet, blend into the scenery, keep your eyes open, and your finger on the trigger. Be the early bird that catches the worm. Not that Towhees are worms. Far from it. Truth is, they’ll eat that worm for breakfast… and you could get it all on film (or a memory card).

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© 2017 Next-Door Nature. Reprints welcomed with written permission from the author. Thanks to the following photographers for making their work available through the Creative Commons license: Dawn Beattie, Calypso Orchid, TJ Gehling, Doug Greenberg, Scott Heron, Lucina M, Mike's Birds, Jorge Montejo, JN Stuart, Ingrid Taylar, USDA, Francesco Veronesi, and Yutaka Seki.