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Winter Birds

© Mary Casey

Most people look forward to the winter season because of the holidays and family gatherings. I look forward to the cold weather because it means the return of what I call my ‘winter birds.’

The Mid-Atlantic area of Central Virginia, where I live, is home to hundreds of bird species who live here year-round. We also enjoy the arrival of our winter residents in the late fall. Slate-colored Juncos and white-throated sparrows are among the first winter birds to arrive. I hear the zeet-zeet of the juncos before I see them and watch the fallen leaves fly up in the air as the white-throats kick up debris to find choice seeds.

The juncos are a pale gray with pastel-pink bills and button-black eyes. They prefer to group together in small flocks with the chubby white-throated sparrows. The junco breeds from Alaska to Newfoundland, south to Manitoba and New England, and south in mountains to Georgia. They winter from South Canada to Florida and Texas. When disturbed, they fly up into the air showing their white outer tail feathers. I found they have a special fondness for fall grass seed. I try to hide to seed under hay or straw, but they find it every time. The juncos sleep in the azalea bushes close to the front of the house at night and buzz around the sunny front yard during the day.

Their friends, the white-throated sparrows, arrive with them in the late fall. They have a distinctive call people say sounds like ‘Poor Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody, Peabody, Peabody’. I notice their typical sparrow shape is a little bigger and fatter than the brown-headed chipping sparrows, and the white patch on their throat and yellow splotches above their bills make them stand out. They also breed in Canada and winter from Pennsylvania to the Gulf Coast and Mexico. The white-throats tend to stay on the ground searching for dropped seeds under the tube feeders, or any stray grass seeds the juncos may have missed.

Another winter resident is the purple finch. I first noticed two pairs of them last year enjoying seeds from the feeder. At first, I thought they were year-round resident house finches, but these birds were actually a bright purple-red in the sun. Their heads looked big for their bodies and they had more extensive red-purple color on the head and back than the house finch. This fall they brought two more pairs of finches with them for a total backyard population of four pairs. They will eat either thistle seeds from the finch feeders, or black oil sunflower seeds from the tube feeders.

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