Category: Red Eyes

Eastern Towhee

A large sparrow with a long tail. The Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) fills the edges of the woods here with their beautiful song of “Drink your teeeeaa” all day long. For me, a constant companion.

Here in Virginia these Towhees have haunting red eyes but in Florida and northern Georgia they will have light straw colored eyes.

The Eastern Towhee is a bird that is here year-round, scavenging in the undergrowth for whatever it can find. Insects, spiders, snails, berries, millipedes, all could be on the menu.

If your bird feeders are close to the understory of the woods you might be fortunate to find a Towhee under those feeders scratching about for sunflower seeds or mealworms. If they feel safe.

Common Box Turtle

So many Common Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina) shell designs! Each and every one of them different. They fascinate me. But then it’s not just the shell design, it’s the whole turtle that fascinates me.

As I’m out roaming I’ll stop if I see a turtle in the middle of the road, to help it get across safely. Surely many of you do that too. I’ve always got my camera with me and I’ll take a picture of the critter. Most of the time I get a picture from above as you can see in the first composite image.

I also get a picture that includes one of the turtles eyes. Males are supposed to have red eyes and females brown eyes but I find that a bit confusing since there is so much variation in the range of red to brown.

Another picture, this, of the turtle’s plastron, which is the bottom of the shell. That will help determine the sex of the turtle as well. A flat plastron belongs to a female. A plastron that is slightly concave indicates a male. Along with the photos I’ll make a note of the location. That way I can keep track of a second sighting if it happens.

Quite likely to happen since Common Box Turtles live to be 25 to 35 years old, and some have actually lived to 100 years of age. Their home range usually is less than 2 acres. So quite likely to show up at the same spot again which makes me feel like I’m seeing an old friend.