THE CONDOR 
: | A Bi-Monthly Magazine of 
Western Ornithology 
Volume XXII September-October 1920 Number 5 
[Issued September 24, 1920] 
THE PINK-SIDED JUNCO 
By M. P. SKINNER 
HE PINK-SIDED JUNCO (Junco hyemalis mearnsi) is the bird that is by 
iB far the most frequently met with in the forests of Yellowstone Park. 
Sometimes these Juncos are found where the trees stand thick and dark, 
but more often they are about the small openings that are scattered through 
the woods. Especially is this true of nesting sites, most that | have found 
having been situated in the open spaces. The Pink-sided Junco is pre-eminently 
a road-loving bird, being much more numerous along highways than in the 
unbroken forests; throughout a day’s trip in summer these little birds are con- 
tinually flying up from the road to the bordering pines. When they first come 
in the spring they frequent lower elevations, preferably the vicinity of scat- 
tered firs and cedars or at least brushy places. In summer they seek the Park 
plateau, up to the very tops of the highest mountains; late in September they 
have been found within a hundred feet of the summit of Mount Sheridan. They 
are found in the groves of white-bark pine (Pinus albicaults) (on Mount Wash- 
burn and other high mountains) and limber pine (Pinus flexilis), in spruce and 
balsam, in fir and cedar, and at times in quaking asp, willows, birches, alders, 
and even sage brush. On the whole, the lodgepole forests seem the preferred 
habitat. On being alarmed they are quite apt to dart into some handy pile of 
brush. Juncos are seen on the beaches of the larger lakes, Yellowstone, Lewis 
and Shoshone, or in the alders along shore. During cold storms, they quickly 
find shelter under juniper shrubs, upturned tree roots, and over-hanging 
banks; or they come about barns and horses picketed in sheltered spots. Once 
I found them seeking night-roosts in lodgepole pines on a sheltered flat. 
Frequenting, as they do, the Mammoth formation, especially early in the 
season, and being ground-loving birds anyway, it is not strange that they often 
seek shelter in the gas caves and fall victims there. Indeed, this species is the 
one that furnishes the most victims to the suffocating gas, and in former years 
large numbers were killed. A wire netting is now placed over the mouths of 
these caves and the destruction from this cause is much less. The Juneos are 
numerous about the geyser basins, but I do not think the hot water itself has 
any attraction for them; it may be that their food of vegetable and insect na- 
ture is stimulated thereby. 
