8-9" (20-23 cm). Grayish brown above; slightly paler underparts, with buffy belly and tawny undertail. Black facial patch surrounds pale bill.
Call is a single bell-like note. Song resembles a rapid series of call notes.
Along arroyos in desert thickets; associated with cottonwood, willow, and mesquite, although it is also found around farms, orchards, and urban areas.
Resident in southern and western Arizona, parts of neighboring Utah, New Mexico, and California, southward into Baja California and Sonora in Mexico.
This bird, while related to and closely resembling the California and Canyon Towhees, is paler, more secretive, and has a different song. The three do not interbreed, even though their ranges overlap.
3 or 4 pale blue-green, with brown scrawlings mostly at wide end in a cup nest close to the ground in a bush or tree.
