Last year, 2020, on Oct. 18, with a heavy frost the snowbirds arrived in our yard. The year prior, 2019, they arrived on Oct. 15. This year the snowbirds, aka a dark-eyed junco (once known as the ...

Human snow birds, my friends from Lake Villa included, are off to Florida, but avian snow birds are right here in northern Illinois. They’ll be with us until at least early April, if not longer. They ...

We don’t need snow flurries to tell us winter has come to the Inland Northwest. We have the arrival of dark-eyed juncos. The sparrow variety, which doesn’t look like a typical streaked sparrow, is a ...

I was wondering when the first one would show up. Mid to late October is typically when the Dark-eyed Juncos start showing up throughout the southern half of New England, but I hadn’t seen one yet and ...

The Dark-eyed Junco is easily recognized by its slate-gray plumage, white belly, and distinctive white outer tail feathers that flash during flight. Snow Buntings are sparrow-sized birds with striking ...

A columnist received backlash from readers after calling dark-eyed juncos "drab" and "soot black." Readers shared their appreciation for juncos, citing them as harbingers of winter and praising their ...