Date: 4/18/25 2:45 pm From: Dorothy Anderson <andersondorothy72...> Subject: Re: [MASSBIRD] April 18, 205, Newton (NH): Did folks notice that a lot of juncos had departed, yesterday?
Mine are still here and for the first time are taking seeds right out of
the feeder.
On Fri, Apr 18, 2025 at 5:05 PM Aimée Sands <amsproductions...>
wrote:
> You’re right and I hadn’t noticed! The juncoes are suddenly gone! It
> seemed they were here for an exceptionally long time. And it does seem
> they left the day the white throated sparrow arrived here in JP.
> Aimée Sands
>
> On Apr 18, 2025, at 9:01 AM, Matt S. <accipiter22...> wrote:
>
> 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.
>
> Safe travels friends!
>
> Matt S
> Newton, NH
> <Accipiter22...>
>
>
>
