Green-tailed Towhee
Learn to identify the Green-tailed Towhee by ear. Master the "drink-your-tea, zree-zree-zree!" phrase and tell it apart from similar species.
What the Green-tailed Towhee sounds like
A striking brush-country towhee with a soft gray hood, rusty cap, bright white throat, and an olive-green tail that can glow in good light. It usually keeps low in dense shrubs, then pops up to sing or kicks backward through the leaf litter with the classic towhee scratch.
“drink-your-tea, zree-zree-zree!”
How to tell it apart
Where you'll hear it
Look for it in dense, shrubby country across the interior West — mountain sagebrush, chaparral, pinyon-juniper slopes, and brushy canyon edges. In winter it shifts into desert scrub, mesquite, and tangled thickets.
Spring is prime time, when males sing from shrub tops and exposed branches. In fall and winter they grow quieter and sneakier, often giving themselves away only by a rustle from the brush.
Similar species
Spotted Towhee
Spotted Towhee has a black hood in males or browner overall head in females, not a smooth gray hood.
Canyon Towhee
Canyon Towhee is plainer warm brown overall.
Abert's Towhee
Abert's Towhee is larger and more uniformly brown.