Dark-eyed Junco

About the Dark-eyed Junco

A neat ground-feeding sparrow with a pale pink bill and, in every form, white outer tail feathers that flare open the instant it flies - the single most reliable mark on a bird that otherwise varies enormously. Juncos feed on open ground beneath cover, shuffling and double-scratching through leaf litter, and flush low into the nearest brush.

The variation is the interesting part. What is now treated as one species was long split into several, and the regional forms still carry their old names as subspecies groups. Slate-colored birds are plain dark gray above with a clean white belly. Oregon birds have a dark hood contrasting with a brown back and buffy sides. Gray-headed birds, the form of the southern Rockies, are pale gray with a bright rufous back. In West Texas in winter it is possible to see all three within a few minutes of each other, which makes a junco flock worth working through carefully rather than dismissing.

They breed in coniferous and mixed forest across Canada, the western mountains, and the Appalachians, nesting on the ground under an overhang.

In Texas they are winter birds, arriving with the first real cold fronts and leaving by spring, and they are among the most familiar visitors to a winter feeder.