From: Chris Howard
Email: choward@telis.org
Date: 10/22/01
Time: 1:04:14 PM
Remote Name: 209.209.67.108
This morning at our feeders in Bishop were our first of fall in the valley Pine Siskin and (I'm fairly confident) a Pink-sided race Dark-eyed Junco. I know this race is unusual around here and can easily be confused with other races, but here's what it looked like:
The junco had a uniformly grayish-blue hood with contrasting black lores, extensive pinkish-buff wash on sides of breast seamless with narrower band of pinkish-buff on flanks, earthy-brown on mantle only slightly richer and darker than flanks and sides of breast. I was consciously looking to see if the pink sides of breast met in the middle; it didn't. There was a gap of white breast feathers between the pink areas, but not much.
There is so much to learn! Fun-fun.