dark_eyed_junco epitome of incomprehensibility I_have_noticed_the_birds but sometimes birds are hard to ID. (Try getting a card out of your wallet with claws made for tree-gripping.) But seriously. I think the birds that started coming to the feeder recently are dark-eyed juncos. My mother was skeptical, saying the ones she's seen elsewhere look different. But but but. Apparently there's a lot of variation with these critters. I stumbled on a blog with good pictures, and there ARE ones with dark brown feathers even in the "slate grey" subtype that's common in Eastern Canada and the U.S. Look at these cutie pies: https://nemesisbird.com/birding/identification/dark-eyed-juncos-the-females/ They seem to have browner feathers when younger. When they're older they go grey. Oddly humanlike! 251122 ... raze for months now, the only sparrows i've seen around these parts have been house sparrows. today, for the first time in what felt like forever, a lone dark-eyed junco appeared on the fence. they took the treat i tossed them like an old friend. which they very well may be. 261027 ... alceda i don't know if this is just a british thing, but bird people here will refer to 'LBJ's or 'little brown jobbies' for the rather large proportion of species that are rather difficult to identify on account of them all being, well... little brown jobbies. i don't find it too difficult for most of the common birds here personally - wrens have their unique smolness (and obviously aren't goldcrests) with raised tail, dunnocks have their particular dark grey-black rear wing patterning and are always hopping around low hedges. female robins have their particular roundness (side-note, i always get a massive kick out of how the folks who named american birds after british birds clearly had no memory of what the british one looked like - the american robin? come on!). and then i would look funny at anyone who called a house sparrow an LBJ - there's a real kind of 'ferrous' quality there. though i think there are quite a few subspecies. if rarer than that you can usually infer it from the location/setting/time of year - reed bunting for instance - at least for the first few times, anyway; funny how eventually you 'just know.' i kind of wonder whether it comes more from the climate here than the birds themselves. i guess the default drab overcast (to which we must now reluctantly return) makes everything look a bit more brown and indistinct. i feel sad for the birds that the light flattens their uniquity in this way. now trying to tell apart a cattle, little, and great egret at a distance... that can really start to cause me existential trouble, especially if they're wading. my god! while we're on that - actually - trying to tell apart the various juvenile finches, that is enough to give this girl nightmares. 261027 ... e_o_i alceda, I have a (maybe) related feeling - I get jealous of this country's other shore when I see photos of songbirds in Birds of Canada with metallic purple plumage, only to read that they're strictly west coast birds. But the deep brown colour of the young juncos is nice in a more subdued way. I didn't realize dark-eyed juncos were a kind of sparrow until the bird book told me. A lot of the small sparrows here are stripey brown and I think there's more than just one kind. When I see a song_sparrow, it's usually around roadside bushes, hopping on or near the ground. In appearance, it's very small and round and stripey...but then there's another of a similar shape. Less overall stripeyness, but with a small but distinct line near its eyes. Chipping sparrow? Something like it, maybe. 261027 ... ovenbird We have the same notation except I've always called them LBB's (little brown birds) of which, I suppose, the Juncos are one, though their dark heads make them relatively easy to tell apart from other sparrows. I've always loved the Juncos. They tend to crop up in droves at this time of year and are always welcome guests in the garden. 261027 what's it to you? who go blather from