Dark-eyed Junco with white wingbars, eastern Pennsylvania (1 Viewer)

[birdmeister]

Hello,

Several days ago (November 13-14) I saw a junco at my feeders with white wingbars. Upon further research, I decided that this bird didn't have enough characteristics to call it the "White-winged" race of Dark-eyed Junco. On eBird, there is only one accepted record of "White-winged" east of Kansas. It was over 20 years ago. Is anyone aware of any Pennsylvania records for this race/subspecies?

As I observed it, I did not think it was noticeably paler or larger than the other juncos. It does show a dark "mask", but all the juncos seemed to show that. I think that the paler throat in picture 2 is a result of lighting, as no other pictures show it. Unfortunately I did not get a good photo of its spread tail, which would have helped a lot. I haven't seen it in a few days. I read that 0.5-3% of "Slate-colored" juncos show white wingbars, so I think that is what it is. I wanted to get a few more opinions, though.

Thanks.

 

[KC Foggin]

Wow! Never seen one like that before. Did you, by any chance, contact your local Audubon to see what they have to say?

Please keep us informed of anything you find out on this variant.

 

[A2GG]

Did a little googling and found this subspecies which has the
white wing bars:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-winged_junco

 

[A2GG]

Sorry I just see now that you ruled this subspecies out in your initial post.

 

[Tiraya]

This trait does exist in other subspecies.

Sibley actually references this in his guide for slate-coloured:

"some Slate-colored individuals (1 in 200) have white wing-bars as prominent as White-winged [...]"

 

[birdmeister]

Thank you all for your responses. I have not contacted my local Audubon chapter but will consult some knowledgeable local birders. Is there anything in my pictures that could suggest one or the other (White-winged or Slate-colored) definitively other than the wing-bars?

 

[Birdbrain22]

The minor differences(besides the wingbars) I can find between the 2... Stokes states that the White-winged has 3 white outer tail feathers compared to the 2 white outer tail feathers on the Slated-colored. White-winged is also is slightly paler then Slate-colored(but good luck telling that from these pics). It also says, 3% of Slated-coloreds can show wing bars.

White-winged is generally restricted to parts of MT,WY, SD and NE. But to confuse things some more is the timing... Late last week and into the weekend, there was a great push of Western birds showing up all over the East via the weather patterns.

Most likely a Slate-colored still.

 

[Tiraya]

White-winged is a paler bird, appearing greyer with a black "mask" over the eyes. Slate-coloured is uniformly darker grey, with no such mask, at least not obviously visible.

For instance: http://www.bellbird.us/gallery/_data/i/upload/2013/01/23/20130123093036-d1408705-me.jpg

 

[birdmeister]

I just added a picture of a regular Slate-colored junco (the 5th picture). One interesting thing I noticed was the bill-to-eye ratio. From what I can see, the regular junco's bill is about 1.5 times longer than its eye length. The one with the wing-bars has a bill that is at least twice as long as its eye. I did read that "White-winged" usually has a bigger, longer bill.

 

[Tiraya]

I'm not entirely sure eye position is useful in this case. Many birds (most obviously gulls) have varying eye position and it can depend on the age of the bird as well.

If there is a bill difference it is very minimal, most importantly it doesn't seem to be a reliable indicator.

So plumage seems to be the only point here, which favours slate-coloured and doesn't work for white-winged.

 

[birdmeister]

Ok, Sounds good. I will lean more on Slate-colored than White-winged. Interestingly enough, I saw a second junco with wing-bars today. It had a brownish back, though, and its wing-bars were fainter. I guess I have two aberrant Slate-colored juncos at my feeders. Thanks everyone for your opinions and feedback.

 

[Larry Lade]

Your photos show that your bird is pretty dark gray. White-winged Junco is paler gray than the Dark-eyed Junco. I think you have that 0.5-3 percent, as you posted above, to wit, "I read that 0.5-3% of "Slate-colored" juncos show white wingbars".

 

[Jeff Hopkins]

I'm not very familiar with the white-winged subspecies, but other than the wingbars, the coloration looks perfectly fine for our common slate-colored junco.

BTW, where in eastern PA are you? If it comes back, I wouldn't mind seeing it live (just in case).