A rare visit of a California towhee in the birdbath!

This Towhee was happily splashing in one of our birdbaths today.

I thought that the birds wouldn't be interested in our birdbaths now that it is November with cooler temperatures. We also have had many mornings with a lot of condensation from heavy fog. But last weekend I noticed a white-crowned sparrow and a song sparrow drinking from this birdbath. I felt kind of guilty becauseI had not looked at or cleaned the birdbaths for almost a month, since I didn't see any birds there for a while.

When I checked, this birdbath barely had any water in it and needed to be cleaned, while the larger birdbath still had some water in it, and was quite clean. So I rinsed both baths out thoroughly with water, wiped them dry and added fresh water.

I'm glad I did because more birds are frequenting the baths again, definitely because of our drought conditions.

What is very interesting is that although we have Towhees often visiting our yard, I've never seen them around or in the birdbaths. So it is a real treat to see this one enjoying the water. Yes, this bath looks a little small for the Towhee, but I guess it preferred the location to the larger bath on the other side of our huge flowering sweet potato vine shrub.