Cool critters: Dark-eyed juncos mark the return of winter

We don’t need snow flurries to tell us winter has come to the Inland Northwest. We have the arrival of dark-eyed juncos.

The sparrow variety, which doesn’t look like a typical streaked sparrow, is a true snow bird. But instead of flocking south to Arizona and southern California to spend winters among citrus trees, it migrates from Alaska and Canada to live near bird feeders in Spokane and other midlatitude urban areas.

Some dark-eyed juncos stay in the Inland Northwest during the summer breeding season, but most spend it in the mountains and forests far north of us. Then, come autumn, they start showing up in our region again. The biggest surge, however, seems to materialize around the time of our first snow.

Chances are, you’re already seeing them flitting about in your backyard, a nearby park or field. Hooded in dark gray or brown, they sport distinctive pink beaks, jet-black eyes, a white belly and white outer tail feathers that seem to brighten in flight.

Listen for the junco’s “high chip notes – given almost absent-mindedly while foraging – or intensifying as they take short, low flights through cover,” the Cornell Lab of Ornithology suggests.

Of the 15 dark-eyed Junco subspecies in North America, two reside in Washington state, according to BirdWeb, an online resource of Washington’s birds run by the Seattle Audubon Society.

“The dark-eyed junco is commonly found in Washington in two forms, the Oregon and the Slate-colored,” the site states, adding that the Oregon form is far more common.

Chatty and relatively at ease around humans, the Oregon junco is widespread in the West. Drawn to people’s yards by seeds and berries on the ground, it is a reliable outdoor companion on cold winter days. And while some birds walk as they forage for food, not the junco. Instead, it hops, often in small groups of other juncos. After a snowfall, look for their tiny tracks in side-by-side pairs around the base of trees, shrubs and birdfeeders.

Dark-eyed juncos are also adaptable, evolving to live in highly remote areas devoid of civilization as well as in our backyards and playgrounds.

While human development forces some bird species to pack up and leave permanently, the junco has adapted to live in tandem with humans, said ornithologist John M. Marzluff, author of the 2015 book “Welcome to Surbirdia.”

“Our subdivisions create all sorts of edges between wilder and tamer lands, and that is what the junco seeks,” Marzluff said in an interview. Over time, the birds developed “muted stress responses allowing them to tame down in the city and live calmly among us,” he explained.

Scientists refer to the dark-eyed junco as Junco hyemalis, with the latter term being Latin for “of the winter.” Many of these songbirds will depart on their journey northward in early spring – just as hummingbirds, warblers and swallows are migrating to our region from the south.

For now, dark-eyed juncos are right at home in our wintry weather environment.