The influx of roadside sparrows continues. Around my neighborhood, most are dark-eyed juncos, but there has been a marked increase in the number of white-throated sparrows among them. This is normal.
Wait. The dark-eyed junco is a sparrow? Yes, in that it belongs to the family Passerellidae. (I like to throw in a little Latin now and then, just to prove that I can.) This family includes most New World sparrows, as well as towhees, and the Colorado state bird, the lark bunting. While most sparrows are brown, there is quite a bit of variation. Maine’s breeding fox sparrow is a reddish brown, but fox sparrows in the west are quite gray. There are six species of towhee in the United States. Some are brownish, but most share a wide range of muted colors. The lark bunting is completely black except for white wing patches.
Sparrows have thick bills made for crunching seeds. Finches and members of the cardinal family have similar bills, but these species are comfortable foraging on seeds among the tree branches. Sparrows feed mostly near the ground. They may perch at the tops of weeds to eat the seeds, but that’s about as high as they will go to find a good meal.
[Good Birding: Migrating bird ‘fall-outs’ provide autumn bird-watching opportunities]
Which is why there are flocks of sparrows along roadsides right now. Sparrows are not forest birds. You’ll never find them under a thick canopy. They prefer the small seeds to be found among grasses and weeds. These plants need lots of sunlight, so they flourish in the open along roadsides and forest edges. And that’s where the sparrows flourish.
This time of year, sparrows tend to flock together. There is safety in numbers, and because everything has gone to seed, there is no food shortage that forces them to compete with each other. They’re all just crowding around the buffet table. There are lots of weeds along the sunny edges of roadsides. Furthermore, seeds that have blown to the ground are easier to see on bare dirt and pavement.
Juncos are particularly prone to flocking like this. Most of the groups I’ve seen this week have numbered at least 30, and one flock topped 70. They get spooked by passing cars, so it’s common to see a cloud of birds fleeing to the trees as a car approaches.
Juncos also get spooked by pedestrians. They find safety in numbers because it only takes one bird to spot trouble and warn the others. Boom, they’re gone. That can make it a little challenging to look through these flocks for oddballs, since it’s hard to get close views without binoculars. Fortunately, they don’t spook far. Usually they just go to the nearest trees, where they will wait while you scan them. I admit, birding at this time of year gets a little weird.
Dark-eyed juncos are widespread and hardy. They are a cold-climate nester, limited to northern New England along the east coast but found at higher elevations down through the Appalachians. That pattern repeats in the west, where they mostly nest in Canada, but stretch that breeding range all the way down the Rockies to Arizona and New Mexico. Though some of our juncos stay year-round in Maine, most head south. Some go all the way to Georgia. But not Florida. Even juncos have their limits.
Whenever a species has a widespread range, there are apt to be regional variations. Our eastern variant is called the slate-colored junco, due to its uniform gray color above the white belly. But the predominant subspecies in the Black Hills of South Dakota has white wing bars, plus a broader white color in the tail. Oregon juncos have a blackish-gray head, but the rest of the bird is much more brown than gray. There is a pink-sided junco in the Rockies that resembles the Oregon juncos, but with cinnamon-colored flanks that set it apart from the crowd.
There’s a gray-headed junco subspecies in the Colorado Rockies, and a red-backed variation in the mountains of Arizona and New Mexico. Luckily for us, we just have the one subspecies here in the east.
Of course, juncos aren’t the only roadside sparrows. A few weeks ago, I advised you to scan foraging flocks for oddballs, especially lark sparrows that can wander in from out west. Darned if I didn’t see one just two days later — only the fourth I’ve seen in Maine. I don’t claim to be a genius, but please feel free to argue with me about that.
Bob Duchesne serves as vice president of Maine Audubon’s Penobscot Valley Chapter. He developed the Maine Birding Trail, with information at mainebirdingtrail.com. He can be reached at duchesne@midmaine.com.
Follow the Bangor Daily News on Facebook for the latest Maine news.