Yellow-eyed Junco
The Yellow-eyed Junco is a small songbird who lives in Mexico and parts of southern Arizona and New Mexico. Like some subspecies of Dark-eyed Juncos, they have grey and rusty plumage. They are named for their yellow eyes, unique in North American junco species.
Yellow-eyed Juncos are part of the sparrow family. They are non-migratory within their range. Their preferred breeding habitat is coniferous forest.
Because of their abundance in their range, and their ability to adapt to captivity, the Yellow-eyed Junco has been extensively studied by ornithologists. This means that much of their life history is well known by science.
Details & Statistics
- Least Concern (LC)
- Near Threatened (NT)
- Vulnerable (VU)
- Endangered (EN)
- Critically Endangered (CR)
- Extinct in the Wild (EW)
- Extinct (EX)
Conservation
The Yellow-eyed Junco is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List and was last assessed in 2012 by BirdLife International. This species has a very large range, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the range size criterion (Extent of Occurrence <20,000 km2 combined with a declining or fluctuating range size, habitat extent/quality, or population size and a small number of locations or severe fragmentation). Despite the fact that the population trend appears to be decreasing, the decline is not believed to be sufficiently rapid to approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population trend criterion (>30% decline over ten years or three generations). The population size is extremely large, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population size criterion (<10,000 mature individuals with a continuing decline estimated to be >10% in ten years or three generations, or with a specified population structure). For these reasons the species is evaluated as Least Concern.
International Names
