Gotcha!

The last few months, this wee gent has been visiting my bird feeder. I generally pride myself on my bird identification skills, usually I either know the bird right offhand (courtesy of a birding-type mother) or I figure it out by consulting the ever-handy Peterson Field Guide. But this guy had me stumped. After eliminating the most likely suspects, I went through the guide page by page. still no luck. When I was in Arizona, I queried Mom, and we consulted several different guides to no avail.

Finally, I caught him on film. Sorry for the poor quality: I suspect the combination of shooting through the window, late afternoon light on a snowy day*, and low batteries are to blame, but I think you can see the little birdie well enough. Anyway, I then searched out a birdwatching site here in the GTA, so I could post a message about my bird. Unfortunately, the registration process required me to wait for admin approval, so I was unable to post my photos. I scrolled through various other peoples' posts and found this link.

Hey! that looks like it might be my guy! I am not sure if he is slate-cloured or a white-winged (although I tend toward the latter), but I think he is most definitely a junco. This morning I saw him fly and noted the flash of white that is usually mentioned in the various guides. Sure enough, now that I look at the juncos in the Peterson, I wonder why I was so stumped. Still...gotcha!

*Please note that this snowy day was yesterday. April 7. Once again..WTF?