[Tweeters] Junco vs Chipping Sparrow

[Michael Price via Tweeters]

Hey Tweets

Regarding Dark-eyed Junco vs Chipping Sparrow song.

This was in the early 1990s. On a series of  clearcut/old-growth plots in N
- central BC (55.6N-124.2W, BGC: ESSF, alt. 1100m/3700 ft asl) from mid-May
to early July, breeding *oreganus/cismontanus* juncos on the mountainside
clear cuts, breeding Chipping Sparrow in the shrubby lower storeys of the
old-growth (Engelmann spruce, subalpine fir, lodgepole pine), so lots of
male territorial songs from both. After repeated surveys (walking
transects), we became familiar with the singing territorial males.

While the junco males were establishing and maintaining territory, the
females incubating, and the young in the nest, the songs were easily
distinguishable: juncos, one long unbroken trill, clearly more melodic than
CHSP's typical aridly dry trill. Upon junco fledging and increasing
juvenile independence in late June, the junco song became increasingly
drier, initially resembling Chipping Sparrow but then becoming a more
fragmented, Clay-colored Sparrow-like song. In the first two weeks of July,
everyone fell increasingly silent except for contact 'chip' notes, came
down off the mountainsides into the valley-bottoms, formed mixed flocks and
starting heading south.

Hope this helps.

best, m
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