Gray skies and a snow-covered earth are the Junco colors, and when he flashes them along the hedgerows and wood borders we know that although it is only late September, winter will soon be with us. From that time until April the Junco is of our commonest birds. He visits our food-shelf and roosts in our evergreens, becoming almost as domestic as the Chipping Sparrow. The Junco's call-notes are a sharp tsip, a contented chew-chew-chew, and a sharp kissing call. Its modest, musical little trill we shall not hear until spring. The nest is built on the ground, and the 4-5 white, speckled, or spotted, eggs are laid late in May.
BACHMAN'S SPARROW
Peucæa æstivalis bachmani
With a general resemblance to a Field Sparrow but bill black and larger, cheeks and underparts more buffy, tail shorter, no evident wing bars.
Range. Southeastern United States from central Georgia to Virginia and from northwestern Florida to central Illinois; winters from North Carolina to northern Florida.
Where 'scrub' oaks grow beneath the pines, or post, or white oaks form open woods, there one may look for this rather retiring, sweet-voiced Sparrow. If one can imagine a Hermit Thrush singing the Field Sparrow's chant, he will have some conception of the rare quality of Bachman's Sparrow's song. The nest is built on the ground, the white unmarked eggs being laid early in May.
The Pine Woods Sparrow (P. æ. æstivalis), is a darker race, more streaked above with black. It is resident in Florida (except the northwestern part) and southern Georgia where it frequents pine forests undergrown with scrub palmetto.
SONG SPARROW
Melospiza melodia melodia. [Case 2], Fig. 34; [Case 4], Fig. 42
Streaked below, with a conspicuous spot in the center of the breast.
Range. Most of North America, the eastern form west to the Rockies, nesting from Virginia and Missouri to Canada and wintering from Illinois and Massachusetts to the Gulf.