Female Junco and Companion

(Black-eyed Juncos, Oregon)

I painted this female Dark-eyed Junco first with her solid grip on an Amanita mushroom, which I found and photographed years ago along the California coast. I love the bird’s subtle grays and browns.

When I posted her to my gallery, I thought, “Looks great but maybe she’s a bit forlorn all by herself.” (You never see one Junco at a time.) So I painted her companion, a male Dark-eyed Junco, of course, and arranged them side by side.

I hope I interpreted the situation correctly. Perhaps, the female may have simply been enjoying a moment of peaceful solitude and sunshine. If so, I apologize for the intrusion.

At least they each have their own canvas.

Newsworthy. That would have been it for the Juncos this year except for a most amazing, if not startling, finding in a new study of the bird. Over the last decade or two, Dark-eyed Juncos have increasingly found easier pickings among human dwellings. It has been observed that their beaks grew increasingly thick and blunt over generations, a possible consequence of their changing diets.

A naturally occurring experiment occurred on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles when the Covid pandemic struck.  Available bread crumbs, cookies, and pizza disappeared along with students and staff. Out of necessity, the resident Juncos had to find other foods. As they did so, their beaks began to change again—this time returning to the thinner, longer forms of forest dwelling Juncos. What jolted the scientific community was that these changes occurred in under two years AND were passed on to the chicks of subsequent generations. When students returned and their easy pickings reappeared, the birds’ beaks once again took on their urbanized forms.

Evolution has always been thought to be a very slow process, occurring over decades if not centuries. Were scientists observing something new? In this instance a rapid-response evolution that occurred as a result of sudden changes in human behavior? Whew.

The story continues in a number of journals such as the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.