Dark-eyed Junco

Dark-eyed Junco (aka. Oregon Junco)
Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, Carmel-by-the-sea, California, USA
February 2022
Member of the American Sparrow Family
§A Quarrel of Sparrows§ 

~True Bird Fact~ Truly baffling that I haven't blogged this guy yet since I see him everywhere. Something between never bothering to blog him because I think I already have and never bothering to take a picture because I think I don't need one. Still, one of our cutest little guys. This bird is subject to a debate that is baffling to the amateur bird enjoyer like myself. See, this bird is described everywhere as having an 'extremely variable' appearance. What does this mean? It means that depending on the 'sub-species' the bird looks entirely different.

Map illustration by Borja Mila from the National Museum of Natural Science in Madrid

Take a look at this. Does this look like the same bird to you? Now keep in mind that I've never known ornithologists to not tell me that two almost identical (please see all seagulls for example) birds were actually different, and we have a real mystery on our hands. This article sort of explains it- scientists believe that this bird is involved in very rapid speciation. That is, it's turning into lots of different birds, right before our eyes (at least compared to the scale of time these things usually happen according to). I have to assume it's only a matter of time before they spin this bad boy off into like 14 different birds, half of which are nearly identical. Until then, I'll enjoy my local Dark-eyed Juncos without having to worry too much.

Two left feet
Never uses a public restroom
Always picks a little piece of tall grass and caries it with her when she goes walking
Swears by grinding her own spices over using the pre-ground kind

Good Birds, Bad Pics: Mono Lake Edition

 Hello bird fans! As you might have known from my Grouse Grousing last month, I recently took a trip to Mono Lake. It was a wonderful trip, but to be honest, not as bird-bountiful as I might've wanted. It was a little early to catch the big migrations, but still, it's away from home, and that means new birds. Just not, like, a lot of new birds. And certainly not cooperative new birds. So below I present to you some of the finds that I'm happiest about having seen, even if I didn't exactly nail it in the picture department. These days it feels like the busy amateur birder should feel pretty good about having even tried, right?

Clark's Nutcracker
Mono Lake County Park, Lee Vining, California, USA
July 2020
Member of the Crows and Jays Family
§A Jar of Nutcrackers§ (the other ones are worse)

~True Bird Fact~ Yup, he's named after That Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame. I'm not going to do a naturalist profile in this one. I just did one of those. Go read about how birds shouldn't be named after these guys anyway.

Picture Crime: Far away, in shadow. Basically you can barely see it well enough to ID.

Wilson's Phalarope
Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Preserve, Lee Vining, California, USA
July 2020
Member of the Sandpipers and Phalaropes Family
§A Dopping of Phalaropes§
★The Largest Phalaropes★ (of...3)

[Etymology Corner] Phalarope, that's a weird word, huh? It comes from the Latin name of the bird, and it breaks down to mean Coot-footed. So this bird is named after having lobed feet, similar to a coot. Ironically, this member of the Phalarope genus actually doesn't even have the lobed feet. Pretty messed up that the birds have similar feet but one is named after the other. If only the cards had been dealt a different way, perhaps the coot would've been named Phalarope-footed (but this would cause a time paradox, unfortunately). 

~True Bird Fact~ Unlike most birds, the female is the dominant member of the species. She is larger, more colorful, and males watch the nest while she is out finding more partners. Girlboss!

Picture Crime: Far away, in a group, breeding plumage appears to have not quite come all the way in yet. Other birds nearby confuse me and make me less confident in my ID. They could be juveniles, non-breeding birds, or even non-breeding Red-necked Phalaropes.

Brewer's Sparrow
Gem Lake Trail, June Lake, California, USA
July 2020
Member of the American Sparrows Family
§A Ubiquity of Sparrows§

~Interesting Bird Facts?~ None. Hey, it's named after that same guy from Brewer's Blackbird. That's something, I guess.

Picture Crime: Obstructed behind a branch. Slightly out of focus. Sparrow, so, inherently boring. I already forgot which one it is. 

Well, thanks for slogging through those medium pictures. Still, it's 3 birds I didn't know before, and sort of know now. See you next time when we get into some of the birds I got slightly better shots of.

Yellow-eyed Junco

Yellow-eyed Junco
Madera Canyon, Arizona, USA
July 2019
Member of the American Sparrow Family
§A Meinie of Sparrows§

~True Bird Fact~ Yellow-eyed Juncos are, in their local range, abundant, sedentary, and often stick around the same location. They also do well with captivity, so, as a result, this bird has been used for a lot of scientific behavioral study. Not the kind of thing I would have guessed, as the bird itself looks like it might have firestarter powers.

~Real Bird Myth~ The native people of Mexico (within which most of this bird's range falls) had another name for it- Echa-lumbre, which means 'caster of fire' or 'lightning bird'. Here's an audio story on bird note about it. The Veracrucian people believed the bird absorbed sunlight by day and released it through its eyes at night. This is, to be honest, much more in line with the characterization I was imagining.

I guess in this case you can speculate about the Yellow-eyed Junco's personality as you choose. Do the scientists have it right? Or the Veracrucians? I know which one is more fun to think about, so I'm just going to picture this bird shooting lightning from it's eyeballs at scientists who try to do experiments on it.
 

Lark Sparrow

Lark Sparrow
Mt Burdell Preserve, Novato, California, USA 
May 2018 
Member of the American Sparrow Family 
§A Crew of Sparrows§

~true bird fact~ Sometimes a Lark Sparrow will take over an unused Mockingbird or Thrasher nest rather than build it's own. Sometimes it doesn't even bother with the 'unused' part, and just lays it's eggs in a currently in-use nest. Amazingly the other birds don't seem to mind, and both sets of young can coexist together. Very utopian.

Cavalier. Doesn't mind taking risks
Is good at making crazy ideas sound reasonable
Puts others at ease

Good Birds, Bad Pics

Hey all. Sometimes birding is hard out there. When you've been doing it for as long as I have, and trying to blog about once a week, for the last, like, 6 years, sometimes you come up short of really great pictures of birds you've never written about before. More and more I'll come back from a walk with a camera full of birds and find that they're mostly ones I've already done. Being truly 'out of birds' is not something that I have to worry about for a while, but there's also the pictures to think about. I know I don't need to tell you, reader, that sometimes the quality of the pictures varies a lot. Of course, I do try to keep some kind of standard, or at least only flex that standard for a bird I'm really excited about. Sometimes a bird pic is just not good enough to run as a 'portraiture' entry. I just know I haven't captured the 'essence of the bird', so to speak, so I don't count it.

All that is to say that after looking through the last few months of bird photos, and a couple of misstarts to the ol' blog, this is what I've decided to go with. A trio of birds I was quite excited to get, but that don't really warrant a full blog on their own. Just on a, like, quality level. This way I get to show off these cool birds, but still reserve the right to do a full entry on them later, if I ever get a great picture. Let me know if you hate this blog entry, cause it's a little different. Love you lots. -A

Savannah Sparrow
Salinas River State Beach, Moss Landing, California, USA
January 2018
Member of the American Sparrows and Towhees Family
§A Flutter of Sparrows§

Quickly dismisses others' concerns



Hooded Merganser (male, non-breeding)
Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland, California, USA
February 2018
Member of the Ducks, Geese, and Swans Family
§A Brace of Ducks§

Feels persecuted for his taste in music

Hermit Thrush (probably..)
Point Molate Beach Park, Richmond, California, USA
February 2018
Member of the Thrush Family
§A Hermitage of Thrushes§

Spaces out

Black-throated Sparrow

Black-throated Sparrow aka. Desert Sparrow
Big Bend Ranch State Park, Presidio, Texas, USA
July 2017
Member of the American Sparrow Family
§A Meinie of Sparrows§

~true bird fact~ Like many desert birds, these fellas are uniquely adapted to their hostile habitat. In the case of the Black-throated Sparrow, they can go for unusually long periods of time without water, instead extracting maximum moisture from their diet of seeds and bugs. It sounds like a thirsty life. On an unrelated note, this is one of those birds that occasionally comes up where there's like, zero interesting facts about him. He sure is sharp looking though.

Lover of dried fruit - cranberry, cherry, apricot, mango, you name it
Acts decisively
Might sometimes accidentally hurt your feelings with a pointed comment
Feels driven to create a 'legacy'

Golden-crowned Sparrow

Golden-crowned Sparrow aka. Weary Willie (*see below)
Carmel-By-The-Sea, California, USA
October 2016
Member of the American Sparrow Family
§A Rein of Sparrows§

*~true bird history~ An unusually wistful entry on allaboutbirds.org informs me that this bird's song is "melancholy" and "seems to reflect the bleak beauty of its surroundings". This is an interpretation that was shared by early 20th century miners who interpreted his song to say "no gold here" and/or "I'm so weary". That's a lot of projection for such a little bird. Judge for yourself, I guess I kinda see it..

~true bird fact~ A bird we know relatively little about, especially in the summer months. He spends those summers in the tundras and shrublands of Western Canada and Alaska, places remote enough and far enough from human civilization that study isn't merited. I don't know about you, but I find the existence of such places very comforting.

This bird just has a great attitude, can't wait to start his day. Why would he be melancholy, he doesn't have to mine for gold. He's a bird.
Sometimes flies out of his way a little bit to get those really good berries
Big fan of 'roughing it'
Musically inclined

Song Sparrow

Song Sparrow
Lake Chabot, Castro Valley, California, USA
January 2015
Member of the American Sparrow Family
§A Choir of Sparrows§

~true bird fact~ The Song Sparrow has a song complex enough that even skilled mimic birds, like the Northern Mockingbird can't copy him. They sing so much because this is their way of attracting mates. A male Song Sparrow's song doesn't just tell a female what a good singer he is- she uses it as a marker to determine his intelligence and ability to learn and remember, thus ensuring a strong species. Sparrows have more going on than expected.

Sensitive to a fault. Others' problems hang heavily on him
Comes off as confidant, or even cocky to acquaintances
Finds joy/peace in travel
Notices the little details



Amateurnitholog
Back in 2012, I wrote a holiday special Father's Day blog post in which I covered a family of birds that I had seen living in a drain pipe outside a Peet's Coffee (shoutout to good coffee). This was the first of my (rarely repeated) feature looking at bird homes. Yesterday I saw a bird that seemed to have made a nest inside the light of a working traffic signal and really wished I had my camera. Anyway, in that long ago post I identified the birds as "likely to be... Song Sparrows". If you're a regular reader, you can probably guess where this is going. Looking back at it now, it seems clear to me that 1) There is no indication that those were Song Sparrows 2) I don't know what those birds are and 3) I'm not going to do the research now. We apologize and retract our previous claim, dear blog reader. More interesting though, what does finding this mistake now mean? A sign of growth? An indicator of my still-amateur status? Maybe a little of everything. Your amateurnithologist, signing off.

Spotted Towhee

Spotted Towhee aka. Oregon Towhee (archaic)
Berkeley, California, USA
June 2014
Member of the American Sparrow Family
§A Teapot of Towhees§

~true bird fact~ Spotted Towhees were once considered to be the same bird as their close relative, the Eastern Towhee. They look pretty much exactly the same, except that the Spotted Towhee has those white spots on his shoulders and back. It is theorized that this is an evolutionary development to better camouflage the Spotted Towhee, as he forages in an overall sunnier climate. The white spots make him blend in with the sun-dappled leaf litter. This whole pattern of two almost identical bird species existing on the East and West coast is a holdover from the Ice Age, when the continent was divided rather impenetrably by great ice sheets. Like this, bird species that used to be one were divided for long enough that they turned into two.

A loose cannon. You never know what he might do
Talkative. A hit at dinner parties
Bad with responsibility. Won't remember the groceries, eg.
Irrationally well liked by his friends

Rest in Peace California Towhee

The other day, a bird flew into my house. Before I was able to get him out of the house (and believe me, dear readers, I tried), my dog got to him, and tragedy occurred. I hold myself at least partially to blame; leaving the door open on a warm day, not thinking quickly enough to find another room to lock the dog into, not being able to get the towhee out quick enough. In the end, dogs will kill birds if they get the rare chance to, nature takes its course. Still, I've been a bit sad for the bird ever since, and so in addition to always taking a little bit more care with my back door, I'll do the only thing I can for him, and make a brief tribute on this here blog.


California Towhee
Richmond, California, USA
May 2014
Member of the American Sparrow Family
§A Tangle of Towhees§

~True bird fact~ Kind of a toughy, the California Towhee makes his nest in Poison Ivy. He is so combative that he'll often get into lengthy conflicts with his own reflection in car windows and mirrors.

Personality not speculated upon out of respect, and because it would make me sad. California Towhee, you were a good bird.

Green-tailed Towhee

Green-tailed Towhee
Park City, Utah, USA
Member of the Sparrow Family
 ~true bird fact~ The female Green-tailed Towhee makes her nest in low scrubby bushes in the high desert. When the nest is approached by a predator, she drops to the group and runs across it using her legs, holding her tail straight up. This is thought to be a mimicry of the way a chipmunk runs, and draws predators away from the nest. A braver bird than I.
§A Teatpot of Towhees§

Sings lonely desert love songs to nobody in particular
Appreciates wide open spaces
Has a rugged and endearing dustiness to him
Rarely speaks out, but surprisingly erudite

Birds.gif: Sparrow Bathing

 (click me to witness unprecedented degrees of bird drying)

White-crowned Sparrow
Churchill, Manitoba, Canada
Member of the Sparrow Family
*true bird fact*~ Most of what scientists know about bird song comes from study of the white-crowned sparrow. Sparrow songs differ by region, meaning that two different birds can speak 'different languages'. Some are even 'bilingual'!

Has what is called 'bird pride'
A harsh judge of character, but fair to those he deems worthy
Has a spiritual nature that is impossible to ignore
Patient but resolute

Full vids of bird both washing AND drying. Don't say we never went the extra mile for you here at amateurnithologist: