February 22: Dark-eyed junco

I see a lot of dark-eyed juncos at my feeder. They're cute, medium sized sparrows that are pretty common all over North America in the winter, in woods and at bird feeders. (They breed in Canada in the summer.) The variety I always see is the slate-colored junco, a smooth, pretty gray on top with a white underside. In bird guides, though, there are so many distinctive regional color variations, it always surprises me. Apparently five of the color variations were considered separate species until about thirty years ago.