6 November 2026

Posts Tagged ‘dark-eyed juco’

Lovely Muddy Morning

Tuesday, March 16th, 2021
House Finch pair, East Millcreek, Salt Lake City, Utah, 16 March 2021.
House Finch pair.

A lovely muddy morning hike after a wee bit of rain. Not as many species about, but a very good hike for dog and me—and a deer and a bunch of singing birds. And a special day: my daughter Sarah’s birthday.

(More rain this afternoon—even a peal or two of thunder. Beginning to get a taste of the coming season.)

Grandeur Peak Area List
Beginning at 7:48 a.m. (8:48 MDT), I hiked a few hundred feet up a mountain.

1. Dark-eyed Junco
2. Spotted Towhee**
3. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay
4. American Robin* (v)
5. House Finch**
6. Northern Flicker
7. Rock Pigeon*
8. Black-capped Chickadee**
9. Black-billed Magpie*

Elsewhere

10. Song Sparrow (v)
11. European Starling
12. Eurasian Collared Dove (v)

Mammals

Mule Deer
Red Squirrel

(v) Voice only
*Also elsewhere
**Voice only elsewhere

Magpies

Saturday, November 16th, 2019
Magpie in a juniper, East Millcreek, Salt Lake City, Utah, 16 November 2019.
Magpie in a juniper.

Before I move to Utah, I asked a birder friend what I might expect out here. “Magpies,” he said. “Lots of magpies.”

He wasn’t wrong—magpies are the crows of the Salt Lake City area (although there are a scant few American Crows here also). The local corvids are various jays (I’ve seen only scrub-jays), the occasional raven, and Black-billed Magpies.

I’ve come to like them, though, magpies. As I did the crows of Maine.

Lovely day today. Few bird species where dog and I happened to roam— but plenty to see and hear and think about.

Grandeur Peak Area List
Beginning at 10:45 a.m., I hiked a few hundred feet up the mountain.

1. House Finch*
2. Dark-eyed Junco**
3. Black-capped Chickadee**
4. Black-billed Magpie*
5. Lesser Goldfinch** (v)

Elsewhere
6. Song Sparrow (v)
7. Eurasian Collared Dove
8. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay (v)
9. Rock Pigeon

v = Voice only
*Also elsewhere
**Voice only elsewhere

Birds and Bones

Sunday, November 3rd, 2019
Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay, East Millcreek, Salt Lake City, Utah, 03 November 2019.
Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay.
Black-billed Magpie, East Millcreek, Salt Lake City, Utah, 03 November 2019.
Black-billed Magpie.

Another hike without my dog. Only about ten days to go. (Ten days?!) But it was a nice, cool, sunny mid-morning, and a couple wild birds posed for portraits.

Notable was a Black-billed Magpie that I came upon picking at old mule deer bones. It had such a one-track mind that it was fine with my staying within about twenty or thirty feet of it, snapping photos.

Also a bunch of scrub-jays and a scattering of juncos.

Back home, out my office window, I watched another kinglet poking about in the greenery—well, brownery, I guess.

Grandeur Peak Area List
Beginning at 10:30 a.m. (MST), I hiked a few hundred feet up the mountain.

1. Black-billed Magpie*
2. Woodhouse’s Scrub-jay*
3. Black-capped Chickadee**
4. House Finch*
5. Lesser Goldfinch** (v)
6. Dark-eyed Junco**
7. Northern Flicker (v)

Elsewhere

8. Eurasian Collared Dove
9. Song Sparrow
10. Ruby-crowned Kinglet

v = Voice only
*Also elsewhere

**Voice only elsewhere

 
Bird Report is a (sometimes intermittent) record of the birds I encounter while hiking, see while driving, or spy outside my window. —Brian Willson



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