Meanwhile, a towhee gathers twigs for its nest in the backyard

Towhee scoping out the surroundings for nest materials

This week we noticed a pair of California towhees hunting for twigs in our backyard. And realized that they are building a nest in our neighbor's shrub right on the other side of our back fence. How exciting! I took these photos yesterday late morning, which seems to be the prime time for these towhees to gather nesting material.

Towhee scored a beakful of twigs!

This is why I don't trim and clean up twigs and dried up stems over the winter. They make great nest material.

Taking the twigs to the nest

Somewhere in there is a towhee nest in the making!