Invasion of the Juncos!
| 14 imagesAs I wrote in my last gallery, I received the ebook “Guide to Songbird Setup Photography” by Alan Murphy. I set up a bunch of perches in my back yard, filled a bunch of feeders with seed, and sat and waited with the 500mm lens in a cheap little camo pullover suit (I probably looked like a bush). Within minutes, I was overrun with Juncos! I’d seen a number of them cleaning up the seeds that fell out of my hanging feeders before, but never in these numbers, there must have been 25 to 30 of them. I’d only noticed one variety before, however I believe at least one of each morph of Dark-eyed Junco ended up in my yard the last few days. I identified at least the following:
- Oregon Morph (Male and Female)
- Pink Sided (Juvenile, and male?)
- White Winged (male)
- Slate Colored (female)
There are also Gray-headed and Red-backed morphs, although I am not sure I saw any of them. I am not sure they are regular winter residents of Colorado, and as far as the Red-backed go, I think they only visit the southern parts of Arizona and New Mexico. Anyway, PLENTY of photos of these guys. Enjoy!
Nature Photography 
Overall you achieve such sweet lighting on your images…one of my favorite things about the images.
Thank you! Lighting is one of the things I really aim for these days. I think it is the most critical aspect of photography, even if you aren’t in a studio with total control of light placement and light count. Photography is all about “painting with light” after all. With wildlife and birds, when you can angle yourself relative to your subject such that the light lands on them in a better, more pleasing way, the end result tends to be better. Not a particularly easy thing to do with birds, for sure! The days these photos were taken, it was deep in winter…sun angle was low, there was usually some light winter clouds in the sky, lighting was relatively soft. They just turned out wonderfully! 🙂
That is some amazing variability. I assume they all sound different? At least to each other?
I believe all the Juncos use the same “language”…as far as I can tell, I believe they are interbreeding. I am not sure why there are so many varieties…out side of maybe one variant, they all populate the same general regions, eat the same food, sound the same (and I’ve spent quite a bit of time listening to their chatter…quiet but consistent pips and squeeks, regardless of the specific morph). They seem to spend the summer in the same general area as well, so their breeding habitat is just as diversely populated as their winter habitat.