The Bird With The Rattlesnake Voice

One shot was all I got. Mid song if you can call it that. What, that's a bird? Sounds to me like a rattle snake, or a varsity sports whistle, or maybe Amazonian beetle on amphetamines. But a bird? I had to investigate. 

Having spent a considerable amount of time on the Southern California trails, all I could think of was rattlesnake, with a tinge more rhyme and a lot less reason. Why did he make such a loud annoying sound? And at 6 am every morning right outside our window? Once I spotted him and captured him with my DSLR 18-200 mm lens, I went to work on the internet. Swallow family? None of the eyes matched. Warbler? To plump for them. Hmmm. What was this thing? Then I found him. With piercing orange eyes, a black head, a distinctive grey chest, and his freakish shrill song, I found him -- a Spotted Towhee!