Today (October 12) a female Eastern Towhee was present in the backyard  
and the nearby neighborhood here in Norwich village. Hearing repeated  
call notes was the first indication of the presence of this bird.  
Later I saw her scratching using both feet simultaneously in the  
ground litter. In a subsequent observation through 8x42 binoculars  
about 15 feet from the bird in the shade, the iris color appeared to  
be brownish. Mature birds would be expected to have a red iris color.  
Therefore, this bird presumably hatched in 2008. Because the species  
is not known to breed in Norwich village, the bird found today seems  
likely to have been a migrant or wanderer.

Today's sighting was my latest fall record for this species in Windsor  
County, Vermont. My previous late fall record for the county was a  
towhee in the town of Windsor on September 27, 2006.

George


George Clark
Norwich, VT

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