h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Snowbird: The Dark-eyed Junco, a Winter Visitor - A88011137
Author: Dmitri Gheorgheni - Not Banned in China - U1590784

It snowed suddenly one day, and all these juncos showed up and mobbed the feeder. They're cute, so I thought you might like them for the Guide.

Picture is from the Post, but if anybody's got a better one...

Lovely! Thank you for writing about them for the Guide

I did have a few questions, as the first paragraph anticipated!

I'm not familiar with the phrase "snowing to beat the band". Does it just mean 'heavily' or is it a more specific term?

I had to read the third sentence twice to see that it was saying that the bird feeder was rapidly collecting a flock of birds, so I don't know if that needs to be tweaked somehow.

Is the photo of 'Oregon' Juncos rather than the black and white ones?

What is it about their beaks that makes it obvious that they are seed eaters?

What do the females look like?

Excellent video - great to hear the calls

Good to know the population is large - I see IUCN estimates the population to be 260 million http://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22721097/95099443 Are the birds with other colours subspecies?

Excellent conclusion to the Entry

Thanks for this!

'To beat the band' does mean 'heavily'. I changed it - didn't know that was unusual.

These are the grey-and-white males. The photo's in heavy snow, maybe that's not so obvious with the light. I tweaked the descriptions, added a link to a photo of a female junco, and fixed that sentence.

According to Cornell, 'Among the 15 described races, six forms are easily recognizable in the field and five used to be considered separate species until the 1980s.'

Also according to Cornell, 'A recent estimate set the junco’s total population at approximately 630 million individuals.'

I think they're lumping them all together.

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Dark-eyed_Junco/overview

Will that do?

PS If that photo doesn't look good enough, let me know. I may not be able to get a better shot if the juncos don't show up, but I might be able to tweak another video still.