This blog is mostly about baking (and food in general), but we can't ignore the other part - the birds. I'm lucky to work at an aviary this summer, overseeing a breeding program for Dark-eyed Juncos. The junco is a handsome sparrow-like passerine (that means a perching bird, as opposed to something like an owl, hawk, or buzzard), but we usually don't see them here in the midwest except in the winter.
Every winter, juncos migrate southward from their usual homes in Virginia, the Dakotas, Northern California, and other higher latitudes. I see them in my snowy garden pecking at the seed we scatter for our bird friends. But at the aviary, we can observe them all year long. My breeding juncos live in a 2x4 and chicken wire house with a concrete floor so mice, who like to eat bird eggs, can't get in.
