Have you noticed the flocks of little birds that seem to be just about everywhere in our valley these days? When they fly you see a flash of black and white on their tails, and they have dark hoods and heads. What are they and where did they come from? They are Dark-eyed Juncos, and most of them came here from the upper woods to either side of the valley floor where they spend their breeding season.

Dark-eyed Juncos breed in the coniferous and mixed forests across Canada, and down into the contiguous US as far south as northern Mexico. They are about 6 – 6.5”/~15–17 cm in size, with a wingspan of 8 – 10”/~20-26 cm. As the photographs show they do vary somewhat in appearance, but most have a very dark, often black, hood or cape which covers the entire head and chest and part of the upper back. Many have paler browner coloration on their sides or back. Their beaks are pale pink and conical. They are small, slender and cleanly marked, with no streaking or spots. And yes, as the name implies, they have dark eyes. But it’s the black and white tails you will probably notice first.

They are very social, usually seen in flocks, especially in winter and they feed mainly on the ground. Their preferred diet is seeds, sometimes berries, and also insects especially in breeding season, when insect protein provides good nutrition for growing young. They favour low bushes and scrub, and will often come to forage under feeders at this time of year. This has led to their nickname of ‘snowbirds’ as they often turn up after snowfalls. While content to take advantage of urban bird feeders, they will spook at human presence, darting into cover rapidly, their outer white tail feathers catching your eye as they vanish.
At this time of year they utter flock contact and alarm calls that sound like sharp ‘ticks’. When they start to sing in spring, in readiness for breeding, their voices sound like a low, liquid, one-pitch trill. I think they sound a bit like a modern landline phone, a simple muted fairly long trill, so I sometimes call them ‘the telephone bird’. They build a cup-shaped nest on the ground, hidden under vegetation or next to rocks and typically lay 3 – 5 eggs, sometime between May and August.

Like many small birds such as chickadees or song sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos will respond to ‘pishing’. Have I told you about ‘pishing’? Birders who are trying to see small birds sometimes try making soft sibilant sounds with their lips, something like ‘push’, ‘push’, ‘pish’, ‘wish’, ‘swwwisssewiss’. Many small birds will pop briefly out of cover to such sounds, which the birds themselves occasionally utter to alert their companions to a hawk, owl or other threat. It’s unfair to overdo it, and shouldn’t be used at all in breeding season. But it can occasionally allow you a better look at a bird’s appearance to be sure of its identity.

If you have a bird feeder, check out the ground beneath it during the winter months. Or if you are out walking in a park, or on the Greenway or Rail Trail, anywhere in fact where there are low bushes and good cover for little birds, I guarantee you will see Dark-eyed Juncos right now if you look. There are currently a great many of them in the scrubby weeds near Munson Pond, for example. Enjoy the sight. When the warmer weather comes around, they will leave us for higher ground and the conifer woods where they will spend the summer and raise the next generation. But of course, you can see them there too, if you keep your eyes open!
Pam Laing
Okanagan birder
