Slate-Colored Dark-Eyed Junco

Juncos are among the easiest birds to attract to a feeder and are seen across the United States. Yet, juncos have variations in color, size, and habit.

What are your juncos like?

How to Attract Juncos

Where They Live

Oregon Dark-Eyed Junco

Your best chance of seeing juncos is wintertime, in fields, suburbs, parks, and gardens. They can be found in most of the U.S. and Canada.

Juncos live year-round in the western U.S. (approximately from the Rocky Mountains to the western seaboard) and the northeastern U.S. into Canada. Juncos typically breed in Canada.

What Does Your Junco Eat?

Juncos like insects and seeds. What seeds they prefer -- and how they eat them -- seem to differ across the country.

Gray-Headed Junco

In some places, juncos only eat shyly off the ground, but in most places, the juncos flock to hanging and tray feeders.

Juncos eat black oil sunflower seeds, millet, safflower, peanut butter suet, and cracked corn.

Male, Rocky Mountain Variation

Some bird watchers report junco in their areas eating only millet or only black oil sunflower. Others report the juncos favoring only crabgrass seeds or insects in leaf litter and pine needles.

Where Does a Junco Nest?

The Dark-Eyed Junco nests mainly in Canada and in U.S. mountainous regions. It's not attracted to nestboxes, unfortunately for us!

Is It Really a Junco?

Juncos are sparrows around six inches long. You'll find the shy juncos of mountain areas to be smaller and perhaps a Midwestern junco to be more plump if not longer.

Fledgling Pink-sided Junco

Dark-eyed juncos hop along the ground, and their song is a musical trill, as you can hear via Cornell or the USGS.

Juncos generally are gray or brown, with a gray to black hood, white belly, dark eyes, pink legs, and distinctive white outer tail feathers. The female tends to be paler and browner, the juveniles with fine streaks.

What Colors Are Your Juncos?

Several Dark-Eyed Junco subspecies exist:

Slate-Colored Variant

• Slate-colored: dark gray hood, back, and sides; pale brown body
• Oregon: brown back, sides; dark to dull gray hood
• Pink-sided: dull brown back, pinkish sides; pearly gray hood, small black mask, lighter throat
• Gray-headed: small black face mask, light gray hood and sides, reddish back
• Red-backed: dark upper mandible of bill; small black face mask, light gray hood and sides, reddish back
• White-winged: white in wingbars and tail; pale gray back, hood, sides

Other variations can be found near the Mexican border.

Mistaken Identity?

The Yellow-Eyed Junco looks similar to the Dark-Eyed, but, obviously, has yellow eyes as well as reddish in the wings. The Yellow-Eyed walks, not hops.

The Chipping Sparrow's song is similar to the Dark-Eyed Junco's.