Dark-backed Weaver

Adults are gray overall with a white head and dark nape. Juveniles are dark sooty-gray with a white mustache stripe. Some variation across range; Rocky Mountain birds are palest. A bird of northern latitudes and high elevations; found in coniferous forests and clearings. Almost always in pairs or small family groups. Known for friendly, inquisitive behavior. Often seen around campgrounds and roadsides, looking for food handouts. Voice consists of variable soft, husky notes.

Fantail with a broad white eyebrow, dark upperparts, and white underparts. Crown and ear-coverts black, contrasting with white eyebrows. Throat mottled black-and-white. Pair of wingbars formed by well-separated white teardrop-shaped spots. Female slightly paler with a browner head. Immature like adult, but has rufous tips to dark feathers of upperparts. Frequent song is a 4- to 7-note melodious whistling phrase that ascends and then sometimes descends or is left incomplete. Contact call is a harsh “switch-wich.” Inhabits dry, open wooded habitats, ranging from dry deciduous forest to scrubby agricultural edges.

A small, compact finch-like sociable lark that is both resident and nomadic, although movements are poorly understood. The sexes differ in plumage: the male has a gray-brown back and wings with a scalloped pattern, and a black head with bold white ear patches that reach the back of the neck; the streaky female is variable depending on geographic range, but always has a dark belly patch and tends to be paler than other female sparrow-larks. Flocks of 20 to 100 birds (often mixed with other sparrow-larks or with Stark’s Lark) can appear in grassy patches in semi-arid shrublands and fallow fields. They shuffle along in bare patches foraging for seeds and insects.