By Stan Lilley It has certainly been an interesting winter around our mid-Michigan home. We have been pleased to welcome back Common Redpolls after a two-year absence. The American Tree Sparrows and Dark-eyed Juncos are routine seasonal visitors that always claim our attention. There have been some odd out-of-season visitors too, including a Rusty Blackbird that has returned nearly every day since January 5th, and a Red-shouldered Hawk seen on January 23rd and February 2nd. But one of the most interesting visitors has been a very unusual Dark-eyed Junco that I have come to call “Patches.” I’ve never seen a White-winged Junco (WWJU). When this bird first showed up on January 10th, visions of WWJU immediately came to mind. What a find that would be! That is a Junco of Colorado and Wyoming. I don’t think there has ever been one documented in Michigan. I jumped for the field guide to learn what I could about WWJU and compare to this bird. First, the real thing has distinctive, bright white wing bars. This bird doesn’t have wing bars; more like wing patches. As one who sometimes can’t resist personifying birds, “Patches” was a natural choice. David Sibley, in The Sibley Guide to Birds, states that 1 in 200 Slate-colored Juncos (SCJU), the widespread and common Michigan winter race, have white wing bars as prominent as WWJU. But nothing about white wing patches. WWJU is supposed to be larger and paler gray than SCJU. This bird seems to be a pale gray, but didn’t appear noticeably larger than the obvious flock of SCJU with it. WWJU has more white in the tail than SCJU. Reportedly, the outer three tail feathers on either side are white and there is usually white on a fourth. How identifiable this would be without having the bird in hand, I’m not sure. But as I watched this bird move from spot to spot, I didn’t see any obvious difference. If anything, there may have been a little less white than on most of its companions. A hint of brownish tint to the back and flanks made me think female. But there is some darker mottling apparent in the head and face that makes it seem like a washed out male. From the front, there is a good deal of uncharacteristically pale feathering under the chin and additional mottling of the concave mantle. Concave mantle; another characteristic of SCJU. An interesting bird indeed. So what have I got here? My reluctant conclusion was that this is probably not a WWJU, but rather, an aberrant plumaged 1st winter SCJU. I sent pictures of Patches, and my commentary, to Mike Bishop, my bird-banding friend and President of Michigan Field Ornithologists and Bird Banders. Mike thinks it’s a SCJU too, “with weird coloration going on with the secondary coverts.” Mike forwarded the pictures on to a colleague with more experience with WWJU, who also concurred that it appears to be an aberrant SCJU, not WWJU. OK, so maybe it’s not WWJU, but it has provided an interesting exercise in working through field marks. And it’s been a fascinating bird to watch. Patches has continued to grace us with sporadic visits from January 10th to February 23rd. It won’t be all that long now before he/she heads back for the North Country. Maybe one of my Northbirding friends will be fortunate enough to be visited too. If so, please say a hello for me. February 2004 All Text and Photos contained in this feature are COPYRIGHT of Stan Lilley.