Juncos return for winter; hillsides shift to autumn colors
Dark-eyed juncos have returned for the season — the first sighting matches last year’s date — as local hillsides shift from green to red and gold.
As predicted, the hillsides are now turning attractive colors as the chlorophyll in leaves decreases and the colored pigments underneath reveal themselves. Already, though, most of the walnut trees are bare — they’re the last ones to produce leaves in the spring and the first ones to lose them in the fall.