BirdBrain Academy

Sparrows · Passerellidae

Eastern Towhee sounds

Pipilo erythrophthalmus

The Eastern Towhee is a large New World sparrow of brushy eastern North America, with northern birds migrating south.

Learn bird sounds freeMore Eastern Towhee recordings
Eastern Towhee
Photo: JeffreyGammon, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Listen to the Eastern Towhee

Each recording below is a short excerpt with its spectrogram, a picture of the sound. Time runs left to right and higher pitches sit higher up. Play each one, then look for the same shape in the next. Different recordings of the same bird help you learn the bird, not one clip.

Call · recording 1 Spectrogram of a Eastern Towhee call: time runs left to right and pitch rises upward

Recorded by Jonathon Jongsma, Afton State Park, Washington County, Minnesota, 2016-06-05. XC320484 on xeno-canto, CC BY-SA 4.0. Five-second excerpt.

Call, Song · recording 2 Spectrogram of a Eastern Towhee call, song: time runs left to right and pitch rises upward

Recorded by Jonathon Jongsma, Cannon River Wilderness Area, Rice, Minnesota, 2013-05-16. XC133920 on xeno-canto, CC BY-SA 3.0. Five-second excerpt.

Song · recording 3 Spectrogram of a Eastern Towhee song: time runs left to right and pitch rises upward

Recorded by Jonathon Jongsma, Afton State Park, Washington County, Minnesota, 2016-06-05. XC320489 on xeno-canto, CC BY-SA 4.0. Five-second excerpt.

What to listen for

The song is a brief drink your teeeeea, beginning with a sharp call and ending in a short trill. One common call is a short, two-part note rising in pitch.

Many listeners write its call as “drink your teeeeea”. Treat a written sound as a memory aid; individual birds and regions vary.

What it looks like

The Eastern Towhee is a large, striking sparrow, 17.3 to 23 cm long, with rufous sides, a white belly, and a long dark tail edged in white. Males are black above, females are brown above, juveniles are brown overall, and most populations have red eyes.

Where to find it

The Eastern Towhee breeds in brushy areas across eastern North America and commonly uses disturbed vegetation, old fields, shrubby power-line corridors, early successional stands, edges, and dense understory. It spends much of its time near the ground and nests low in bushes or on the ground under shrubs.

BirdBrain regions that include this bird

  • Caribbean
  • Eastern Canada
  • Florida
  • Great Lakes
  • Mexico
  • Mid-Atlantic
  • New England
  • Plains
  • Southeast
  • Texas
  • Western Canada

Did you know?

  • The Eastern Towhee is also known as chewink, joree, or joree bird.
  • It and the spotted towhee were formerly treated as one species, the rufous-sided towhee.
  • One Eastern Towhee was recorded as a vagrant in Great Britain in 1966.

Learn the Eastern Towhee by ear

BirdBrain Academy teaches bird sounds with side-by-side listening and quizzes that use different recordings, so you learn the bird rather than one clip. Start with six free lessons, no signup needed. On your phone, Sound ID can name the birds singing around you.

Start studying freeGet the iPhone or Android app

Related birds

Species notes are adapted from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and checked for BirdBrain. Recordings come from xeno-canto under the licenses shown with each one. Photo: JeffreyGammon, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Identification guidance is educational; birds vary, so confirm unusual sightings with local experts or eBird.