Foam Lake Birding No. 19

No. 19
It is that time of year again when the transient birds have returned to our yards. For example, the White Throated Sparrow is back. Because there are so many juveniles from this year’s hatch, identifying some of these transients can be quite difficult. To make things easier, I decided to write about a very common and easily identifiable bird – the Dark Eyed Junco.
Juncos belong to the sparrow family, and as such, are seed eaters. They differ from most sparrows in that they do not scratch for seeds, rather, they simply pick up what they see on the ground. Furthermore, males and females are not identical. Although similar to the males, the females are a shade duller and are quite easy to spot. A good place to observe Juncos is under a feeder where they pick seeds that have fallen to the ground.
Where the name, junco, comes from is not certain, but it is an easy one to remember. There are two species of juncos in North America – the Dark Eyed and Yellow Eyed. The latter (the first picture) occurs at higher altitudes in the mountains of Mexico, Arizona and New Mexico where snow falls in the winter. I have often wondered why they just do not fly further north where the snow will come to them at lower altitudes. Such is the way of birds. The Dark Eyed occurs across North America and coexists with the Yellow Eyed in the southern USA and northern Mexico.
Until recently, the Dark Eyed Junco was divided into five different species that are now considered to only be five races (forms or subspecies). Like the Canada Goose, all five races have their own names: Gray-headed, Oregon, Pink-sided, Slate-colored, and White-winged. Each race is distinctly coloured and lives in a specific, but overlapping range. Where their ranges overlap, they hybridize (cross breed) freely. The Gray-headed race and the Yellow Eyed are almost identical, except of course, for the eyes. In mixed flocks (a common occurrence) identification is a bit of a challenge. The Yellow Eyed and Dark Eyed do not hybridize.
Two races of the Dark Eyed occur in Saskatchewan: the Pink-sided that breeds in the Cypress Hills, and the Slate-colored that nests in the Boreal Forest, but is transient here. A verbal description of each race would be long and confusing; therefore, reference to a birdbook is a must. One should also keep in mind that, occasionally, some birds will show up showing colours of races that do not normally occur here. Our local variety is the Slate-colored race. For the sake of brevity, I will refer to our bird simply as the Junco. It is a dark grey, almost black (slate), bird with a white belly. The beak and legs are pink. On the ground, it hops. It is probably easiest to identify when it takes off in flight and flares its tail. The white outer tail feathers are clearly visible with the naked eye. There is another bird that also flashes white outer tail feathers in flight – the Vesper Sparrow. However, the Junco is almost black while the sparrow is brown striped with white. Also, the Junco readily comes into our yards; the Vesper Sparrow does not. In short, if one sees a very dark grey (slate) sparrow- sized bird with clearly visible white outer tail feathers, it is most certainly a Junco.
Today, the word, slate, is seldom used to describe the colour of anything. Rather, we use phrases like “dark grey” or “almost black”. The colour, slate, is named after a kind of rock that is easily split and was widely used as roofing shingles in Britain and elsewhere. The colour of the rock was “dark grey” or “nearly black” of course!
Juncos will stay around until hard frosts come, then, they fly south. They are not very migratory spending the winter as nearby as southern Saskatchewan! Some stragglers will even spend the winter here. In any case, should one not see them now, they will show up in the spring just as the snow starts to melt for the summer. Their arrival in late March and early April is a sure sign of spring, just as their arrival in the middle of September is a sure sign of fall.