Category Archives: notable juncos

Nest update: OLLA’s fledgling(s)

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I stayed away from OLLA’s nest for several days, as I promised, so as not to scare the chicks into fledging early; but finally I just had to know if they had fledged yet. As I approached the nest both OLLA and ALGE scolded me—but the nest was empty. I looked around to see why they were angry at me and caught sight of a fledgling in a nearby tree: BABY! I didn’t see BABY’s siblings, but there were lots of trees around, and fledglings can be cryptic if they stay still. BABY was the smallest of the three so if she is fledged and okay, it’s very likely that YAYN and MAYO are doing well too.

YAYN or BABY, from before she fledged.

SOMA, MANI, & NOLA: funny-colored juncos

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Color abnormalities don’t seem to be very unusual in juncos. There is a junco who sings outside my work building who has white splotches all over him! None of the juncos we’ve caught have been that extreme, but we have found a few with unusual spots of color on them.

SOMA has a white spot above his right eye:

SOMA

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LAGG

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Meet LAGG (Lime – Aluminum – Green – Green).

LAGG

He lives a good 30-minute walk from a campground off Highway 120, far from any other junco territory, as seems to be the rule in our low-elevation sites. We did not see a mate with him—which is strange, to me, because from my subjective human perspective I think he is the handsomest male junco we have caught so far. His head is stark black, no brown feather edges; his back is a rusty red-brown; his tail feathers have lots of white. But of course, there’s no reason to think that female juncos have the same taste in male juncos that I do—and that’s one of the things I’m hoping to find out: what aspects of junco appearance matter to female juncos?

So handsome!

SNAG

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Meet SNAG (his leg bands are Sky blue – browN – Aluminum – Green). He lives at approx. 3100 ft above sea level, in a campground along Highway 120 in Stanislaus National Forest. He seems to be doing well: he has a mate, and when I say he lives in a campground, well… actually his territory appears to encompass the entire campground!

SNAG

His mass is about normal for what we’ve been seeing – 17.6 grams – and he has no visible subcutaneous fat, like most of the juncos we’ve caught. So he’s probably fine, but he could stand to eat more. And he’s working on it: when we caught him he had prey in his bill! They look like aphids to me, but I haven’t really tried to identify them yet.