[ABERT’S TOWHEE]

Melozone aberti

Status:  No accepted records.

Taxonomy:  Two subspecies are recognized (Gill et al 2022): dumeticolus, resident from Utah to southeast California and southwest Arizona, and aberti, resident from southern Arizona to southwest New Mexico.

Comments:  A description of one reported 29 Sep 1980 at Tryon (Bassett 1980; Cortelyou 1981) was not considered diagnostic (Bray et al 1986). This species is sedentary in the southwest United States and has no clear history of vagrancy.  A pair observed and well-documented in Grand Rapids, Minnesota in 2022 (Douglas 2022) was, however, likely not a result of natural vagrancy.

Literature Cited

Bassett, O. 1980. Abert’s Towhee reported. NBR 48: 89.

Bray, T.E., B.K. Padelford, and W.R. Silcock. 1986. The birds of Nebraska: A critically evaluated list. Published by the authors, Bellevue, Nebraska, USA.

Cortelyou, R.G. 1981. 1980 (Twenty-third) Fall Occurrence Report. NBR 49: 14-30.

Douglas, B.  2022.  Minnesota’s Potential Fab Five – First State Records for 2022.  Minnesota eBird, https://ebird.org/mn/news/mn2022_fivefirstrecords, accessed 27 Jul 2023.

Gill, F., D. Donsker, and P. Rasmussen (Eds). 2022. IOC World Bird List (v 12.2). Doi 10.14344/IOC.ML.12.2.  http://www.worldbirdnames.org/.

Recommended Citation

Silcock, W.R., and J.G. Jorgensen.  2023.  Abert’s Towhee (Melozone aberti). In Birds of Nebraska — Online. www.BirdsofNebraska.org

Birds of Nebraska – Online

Updated 14 Dec 2023