{"id":1497,"date":"2012-11-12T22:04:17","date_gmt":"2012-11-13T03:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/?p=1497"},"modified":"2012-11-14T16:06:36","modified_gmt":"2012-11-14T21:06:36","slug":"dark-eyed-junco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/?p=1497","title":{"rendered":"Dark-eyed Junco"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a large, rambling yard this morning, many small birds were feeding in a mixture of tall and short grasses, bushes and trees \u2013 Eastern Bluebirds, Chipping Sparrows, White-throated Sparrows, more than a dozen House Finches, an Eastern Phoebe, Downy Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Northern Mockingbird and at least one singing Carolina Wren. It seemed like the place to be. A flock of Cedar Waxwings perched in the bare branches of a pecan tree. A Ruby-crowned Kinglet stuttered as it moved through a bush. A Northern Flicker called a sharp kleer!<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>Then a small, very dark gray bird flew up from the grass into the edge of a shrub along a fence \u2013 its dark, solid color with flashes of white standing out against a background of mostly brown and muted tones. It was a Dark-eyed Junco, the first one I\u2019ve seen here this season \u2013 another returning winter resident. A plump, slate-gray bird with a round head, pink bill, white belly, and white feathers on the edges of the tail, a Dark-eyed Junco usually forages in grassy areas with flocks of sparrows and other ground-feeding birds. Its light, jingling trills sound to me like a ringing of small bells. Usually there are several together, but this one seemed to be alone \u2013 though there might have been others around that I just didn\u2019t see.<\/p>\n

Nearby, a Chipping Sparrow perched in a yellow-leafed bush, its plumage an autumn mix of dark and light streaked brown, with a smooth gray breast, white eye stripe, and faded reddish-brown crown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a large, rambling yard this morning, many small birds were feeding in a mixture of tall and short grasses, bushes and trees \u2013 Eastern Bluebirds, Chipping Sparrows, White-throated Sparrows, more than a dozen House Finches, an Eastern Phoebe, Downy Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Northern Mockingbird and at least one singing Carolina Wren. It seemed like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1497"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1499,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497\/revisions\/1499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}