OREGON JTJNCO 1063 



was picked up. Succeeding birds would not alight on the feeding 

 area at random, but woidd perch on a shrub or some other elevated 

 point in order to ^-iew the flock. Careful appraisal would soon reveal 

 that at one or two points the feeding birds were flashing their tail 

 marks very rapidly. Invariably it was to one of these points that 

 the new and hungry bird woidd fly, and in alighting force the feeding 

 bird to vacate the spot where the cornmeal was piled. The failure 

 of the feeding bird to obtain food was a sign for the flock to break up." 



Oregon juncos often forage in mixed flocks and otherwise associate 

 with other small birds, such as chickadees (Parus sp.), common 

 h\i^h.-i\is {PsaUnparus minimus), varied thrushes (Ixoreus naevius), 

 ruby-crowned kinglets (Regulus calendula), chipping sparrows (Spizella 

 passerina), white-crowned sparrows {Zonotrichia leucophrys), and 

 others. M. S. Ray (1911a) writes about large numbers of green- 

 tailed towhees (Chlorura chlorura) and Oregon juncos associating 

 together among the dry meadowlands of late summer near the southern 

 end of Lake Tahoe, Calif. J. A. Allen and William Brewster (1883) 

 mention collecting an "Oregon Snow-bird" near Colorado Springs, 

 Colo., Apr. 26, 1882, and collecting another the following day, both 

 in the company of white-crowned sparrows. 



In the lowland Puget Sound country of western Washington I have 

 seen juncos and varied thrushes foraging in the same leaf litter and 

 debris, but whether the larger thrushes ignored or merely tolerated 

 the smafler juncos was not learned. The shyer thrushes always 

 flushed before the juncos did. 



Howard Twining (1940) says that in the high Sierra Nevada the 

 juncos are the birds most commonly associated with the gray-crowned 

 rosy finches (Leucosticte tephrocotis dawsoni). He wnrites: 



On July 21, 1936, a male rosy finch was catching mayflies in the air above the 

 north shore of Leuco Lake. A junco in jnvenal phimage was performing almost 

 identical actions. The two would leave the rocks at about the same time and 

 head for the same insect. As the rosy finch caught the insect, the junco would 

 feint at it, then both would return to the rocks. This performance continued for 

 about half an hour before the rosy finch left for the opposite side of the lake. It 

 may be that the young juncos learn this method of catching insects from the rosy 

 finches. On other occasions I saw flocks of young juncos mixed with rosy finches 

 on the lake shore, catching insects in a simUar way. 



Lincoln Ellison (1934) saw juncos active about the seed beds of a 

 forest tree nursery, and in cutover or partly cutover areas, but insofar 

 as he could tell never bothered nearby seed beds in the dense virgin 

 timber. He says: "The birds took seeds from all surfaces: duff 

 (the layer of litter which covers the soil under the forest, in this 

 case 1 to 2 inches thick and composed of dead leaves and twigs 

 * * * ), mineral soil, and burnt mineral soil; but they scratched for 

 seeds below the surface only on those beds covered with duff. They 



