A daily bird, Spotted Towhee

[Kildale]

I will try to post one of our area birds each day. This is one of my favorites, although the composition is not the best, it does show the bird.

[Equilibrium]

What's wrong with the composition??? That's better than anything I've ever gotten of any bird. I've never even seen a spotted towhee in person. That's an excellent photo.

[Kildale]

In the composition, according to the judges rules, there should be more space in front of the subject than behind it. Here, there isn't that space.

[Equilibrium]

There's a rule of thirds I've read about but... lots of photos don't adhere to the rule of thirds and they look excellent. Your avatar is way cool too. I've seen birds spread eagle like that on cattails. It cracks me up.

[Kildale]

Yes, the thirds rule is very good, except many don't use two thirds, they think of one third. Which if you look at my image, it is 2 3rds to the left instead of 2 3rds to the right. Then it would have room to move forward, that is what I said was wrong with the composition. For many nature shots, the bigger the subject the better, or closer if you prefer. Thirds goes out the window as long as there is a bit of space in front and a bit of space above and there is nothing cropped off like feet etc. People want to see the subject, it is not being judged. So ends the first lesson.

[Leslie]

I do like the spotted towhee!!! I like your pic, too. I had 4 males and 1 female at the feeder this morning. I had a local nesting pair this summer, with 4 babies that they'd bring to the feeder.

My rufous-sided towhees from south Louisiana favored white proso millet, and didn't bother coming to the feeder for sunflower. These western spotted birds prefer black oil sunflower. What do yours eat?

They are birds of the bramble (invasive blackberry thicket next door that crowds up to my fence) and they are always scratching around in the leaves under the trees and in the garden, doing that little hop-forward-then-backward to uncover food.

Great birds!

[Kildale]

Yes, they are a ground feeding bird and enjoy the under growth.

[Pahinh Winh]

Hanh mitakuyapi. My brother Everett took a picture of some birds & I'm having a hard time ID-ing them. From the back, these small birds are a soft yellow (not tan) on both upper back & tail. From the side, the wings are black with 3 white bars. I'm still trying for a decent front picture, but the chest as I recall is this same soft yellow shading to cream (not stark white as the bars are). He went to see his g.f. for the weekend & has the photos in his camera so I can't post them for a couple of days - sorry! These birds are sparrow-size. Anyone have any idea of what they are? I can't find them in our state bird book. He had about 30 of them that day; 3 varies daily. Pilamiyaye/ thanks..