GRAY-HEADED JUNCO 1123 



suitable places such as near corrals and bird-feeding stations in towns. 

 There the gray-heads are usually in company with smaller numbers of 

 Oregon j uncos and an occasional slate-colored or white-winged junco. 

 Frequently one or two gray-heads and perhaps an Oregon or a slate- 

 colored occur in company with the white-winged juncos that tj'pically 

 winter in flocks of 10 to 30 in the more open stands of ponderosa pine 

 of the eastern Rocky Mountain foothills. In simOar foothill situa- 

 tions I have seen small groups of gray-heads in mid-winter, usually 

 unaccompanied by other juncos, in close company with mixed flocks 

 of mountain chickadees and pygmy nuthatches, and perhaps one or two 

 white-breasted or red-breasted nuthatches or brown creepers. Many 

 gray-heads winter with the other juncos along the lower edges of the 

 coniferous forest, chiefly in brushy ravines and patches of Crataegus, 

 scrub oak, mountain mahogany (Cercocarpus montanu^) and other 

 "brush," which furnish both shelter and a plentiful food supply not 

 covered by snow. Often what appear at first to be only three or four 

 juncos will, upon taking flight two or three at a time to the next brush 

 patch, turn out to be a mixed flock of Mly or more. Such flocks may 

 also contain considerable numbers of tree sparrows. 



Just as dorsalis migrates much less than the more northern caniceps, 

 the latter is considerably less migratory than the more northern races 

 of the Oregon junco, shufeldti, montanus, and mearnsi. MiUer 

 (1941b) says that "Compared with J. c. caniceps, mearnsi leaves the 

 breeding range more completely in winter and spreads out on the plains 

 in greater number. The extreme limits of record are similar in the 

 two forms; they are commonly associated in flocks in winter in 

 Colorado and in the oak belt of New Mexico and Arizona." 



At Boulder, Colo., near the northeastern extreme of the winter 

 range of caniceps, the John Houghs (pers. comm.) banded 4617 juncos 

 from October through April, 1946 through 1959. Their relative 

 frequencies were: gray-headed 24 percent, white-winged 6 percent, 

 slate-colored 6 percent, Oregon 64 percent (approximately 8 percent 

 montanus and 56 percent mearnsi). The average junco numbers for 

 the 13 Christmas counts between 1945 and 1961 at and near Boulder 

 as reported in Audubon Field Notes show the follo^nng frequencies: 

 gray-headed 14 percent, white-winged 4 percent, slate-colored 4 per- 

 cent, J. 0. montanus 11 percent, and J. o. mearnsi 67 percent. Sum- 

 maries of the Christmas counts of the past 30 years within the mnter 

 range of the gray-headed junco show its relative numbers increase 

 southward to the region of greatest concentration, a small area in 

 north central New Mexico around and including the Sangi'e de Cristo 

 Mountains. There approximately 45 percent of the juncos east of 

 the mountains and 75 percent of those west were gray-heads. Imme- 



