(Contributed photo) This female spotted towhee has been a regular visitor at an eastern Delta County home since Nov. 9. It’s far from its normal range in western North America but seems to be doing well by having a regular food source.

Though so far this winter has been a dull affair in terms of birds, that doesn’t mean it’s completely devoid of surprises.

A home in eastern Delta County has been graced by a species both out of season and out of its normal range.

The homeowner said she first noticed the bird foraging under her feeder Nov. 9. Unable to identify it, she ran its photo through the Picture Bird app on her phone — and the response was “spotted towhee.”

“And I thought, ‘That can’t be right,'” she said.

That’s because the spotted towhee is a bird of western North America, mostly on the other side of the Rockie Mountains, though it will venture into the more southernly Plains states in winter.

This region gets eastern towhees, which are similar to the spotted but lack the scattered white markings on wings and back. Once both were considered the same under the name rufous-sided towhee. But in 1995, they were reclassified as eastern towhee and spotted towhee, separate species that likely became distinct when glaciers split the continent, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds website, https://www.allaboutbirds.org.

An eastern towhee in winter — never mind an Upper Peninsula winter — would be an unusual sight. Towhees basically are large sparrows and like most sparrow species don’t stick around when temperatures go below freezing and the snow begins to fly.

But a spotted towhee raises the rarity to a whole new level.

So she posted the photo on the Upper Peninsula Birding Facebook page — and got the same answer as the app. It’s since been confirmed by Michigan State University and the sighting archived by University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.

After putting up another feeder by the shop on their property, the female towhee has become a daily visitor. The homeowner also put out oak leaves at the base of the feeder, as the bird seems to enjoy chicken-scratching through them.

The woman took up photography as a hobby after retiring in 2008, she said, so has enjoyed getting several good images of the rare visitor that she has shared on Facebook.

But her name and exact location are not being used because circumstances in her household make it difficult to accommodate those who might want to get a glimpse of the towhee. She’s allowed a few birders in — including during the area’s Christmas Bird Count — but can’t take the birding crowds that often form to chase rare sightings.

She hopes people will understand and be content with the photos and updates she’ll continue to post.

She’s helped by the fact that, while rare here, the spotted towhee is considered a relatively common bird in its normal range.

It’s not likely to trigger the level of reaction like the report earlier this week of a white wagtail in Sturgeon Bay in Door County, the first such record of the species in Wisconsin.

If the spotted towhee is off course in turning up in the Great Lakes region, the wagtail has gotten wildly lost. This small gray, white and black bird with a long tail, built superficially like a robin, can normally only be found in North America in summer on the far western edge of Alaska. Most of its kind are common to Europe and Asia and summer in Africa and southeast Asia. They are considered a “very rare stray” in the rest of the New World, according to the Audubon website, https://www.audubon.org.

First seen Dec. 28 by Candy and Rush Evans, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, it was still being confirmed in Door County’s Portage Park as of Friday morning on the eBird Wisconsin Rare Bird Alert.

How do such rarities wind up here? The woman hosting the towhee said she was told a storm system likely swept the bird in from the west. Their property includes a number of open acres originally cleared for farming in the past, with forest and a cedar swamp on the edges. Plenty of good habitat that might have attracted a towhee otherwise unfamiliar with the territory.

The wagtail’s story might be much the same. Seeing it stick around a rocky shoreline makes sense, as the Audubon website advises that in Alaska “it seems to favor the vicinity of manmade structures: most of the nests found in Alaska have been in abandoned fishing huts, old gold dredges, empty fuel tanks, or piles of debris on the beach.”

How long either of these strays will remain in the area is unclear. But the towhee will be accommodated as much as possible, her Delta County host said.

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Another note about birds in the region — Penny Bruce of Crystal Falls posted on the Upper Peninsula Birding Facebook page Dec. 31 the first evening grosbeaks of this winter at her feeders. Let’s hope it signals an influx of these winter finches might be at hand.

Betsy Bloom can be reached at 906-774-2772, ext. 240, or bbloom@ironmountaindailynews.com.