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grey head and dark eye distinguishes this bird from it's relative the Oregon Junco
alpine meadow
I saw more 15 miles down the mountain
Looked a lot lighter to me. Not arguing, just explaining... now to find if spotties are found at that rarified elevation.
In the links Joshua provided of juvenile towhees, they don't have red eyes. The eyes are brown, just like your bird.
That's not what is shown in my Nat Geo field guide to N American birds. Dark eyed junco sub sp dorsalis has a black/grey bill(last link in series), however, I am inclined to agree that it isn't junco because of the mottled feathering, which I hadn't noticed before. Also dorsalis tends to be a SW bird, according to what I've found, and this is the NW. Still, I want to see if I had the original photo that this was cropped from for size difference as that would point to towhee. If it's the same size as the junco, then I have to look further - all part of the confirmation process in an ID. Also I'm trying to see the eye on this guy, which looks dark to me, and the towhee clearly has a reddish eye - they're pretty common near my house, although I"ve never had the pleasure of seeing a juvenile. Not so sure about 8,000 feet up a mountain, and definitely not sure about flocking with juncos as the spotted around here will feed with other birds, but don't stick in the groups as a rule.
Pictures of juncos with dark bills:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http... adult
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http... juv
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http... Nat geo(lower right corner)
All dark-eyed junco subspecies and ages have a pink bill, your bird does not. It's not a junco
I'm going to have to did up my originals for size comparison. It was flocking with oregon juncos and I don't remember there being such a size difference. But it certainly looks right. And in the junco family, subspecies dorsalis has a grey/black beak, but it's tail should be shorter.
Disregard the other link, here's a better one: http://www.pbase.com/rfredrick/image/127...
I'm not sure what this is, Joshua may know, but it is definitely not a junco. Tail is much too long, and juncos have a pink bill.
Spotted on Sep 9, 2011
Submitted on Sep 14, 2011
