Date: 4/18/25 6:07 am From: Matt S. <accipiter22...> Subject: [MASSBIRD] April 18, 205, Newton (NH): Did folks notice that a lot of juncos had departed, yesterday?
Hi All,
We've had at least 10 juncos, give or take, in our yard all winter, sometimes much more. For the past six weeks or so they've been singing, and the past few weeks it's been a constant high-pitched trilling roar. It makes the yard more exciting, I think. Yesterday when I stepped outside I noticed a complete silence, accented by the fact that even the cardinals and various finches weren't singing either. I figured there was a predator nearby, as I went about my yard, some things called here or there, but no juncos. The absence of their song was loud, if that makes sense. The world seemed a little stiller without their song. I noticed a couple were still here, pursuing each other aggressively around the yard as they've been doing, but through the several hours I was outside I only noticed a couple bars of song from them. Anyone else have their yard juncos ride out on the warm air the last few days?
I always enjoy juncos, when I was young and still learning about birds, I thought it was interesting that southward migration included birds that came south to New England for the winter. Juncos were a pretty easy ID, even for a kid, and a book I read said that Native American populations in the area called them snowbirds, since they usually portended winter. I would track how many weeks they arrived before first snow hit. I was equally excited by white-throated sparrows coming in, but I don't recall them in the kind of numbers we had juncos.
