NORTHERN SLATE-COLORED JUNCO 1029 



Egg dates. — South Dakota: 17 records, May 23 to June 29; 8 records, 

 May 27 to June 3. 

 Wyoming: 2 records, June 8 and June 17. 



JUNCO HYEMALIS HYEMALIS (Linnaeus) 



Northern Slate-colored Junco 



PLATES 57 AND 58 



Contributed by Stephen W. Eaton 

 Habits 



The northern slate-colored junco, or "common snowbird" as persons 

 who know it only in winter often call it, is one of the most distinctive 

 of our common sparrows. With its uniform pale gray upperparts 

 sharply defined against its white belly, aptly described as "leaden 

 skies above, snow below," it is not likely to be confused with anything 

 but other closely related juncos, and then only in the western parts 

 of its wintering range. A friendly little bird that breeds across the 

 continent from Alaska to Labrador and Newfoundland and from the 

 limit of trees southward into the northern United States, it is the 

 summer companion of the canoeist in the Canadian forests and of the 

 mountain hiker of Appalachia. In winter it retreats southward 

 throughout most of the United States in small, congenial flocks of 

 15 to 25 individuals. These sometimes forage over the snow-covered 

 fields with the tree sparrows searching for the seeds of weeds that 

 escaped the cultivator, and they commonly frequent the yards of 

 homes where food has been put out for them, which they much prefer 

 to scratch from the ground than to pick from an elevated feeder. 



Essentially an inhabitant of the more open northern woodlands 

 and forest edges, it is generally common throughout its breeding 

 range in the Hudsonian and Canadian life zones, except in the deeper 

 woods, but tends to dwindle in numbers toward the north. Typical 

 is E. A. Preble's (1908) comment: "This common species, sometimes 

 called 'tomtit' in the North, is the sole representative of its genus 

 throughout most of the wooded parts of the Athabaska-Mackenzie 

 country. Over this vast region it is a common summer resident, 

 being one of the earliest of the smaller migrants to anive in spring 

 and a rather late lingerer in autumn." 



Francis Harper (1953) notes that "Apparently the numbers of 

 this species diminish rather decidedly toward the tree limit in most 

 parts of northwestern Canada although Porsild (1943: 43) reports 

 it weU beyond the tree limit at the Mackenzie Delta." Lawrence 

 Walkinshaw writes Mr. Bent of finding the males singing from the 



