sparrow season

Today under my feeders there were three, possibly four juncos poking around for seeds and squabbling over prime patches of grass. They were all dark, dark gray, so probably all males. The boys and girls spend the winter apart, and the boys are the first to move back up north to stake out their territories. Some juncos stick around all winter in Duluth, but I haven't had any in the yard since December, and these are my first sparrows of spring. My yard is kind of bare right now, and over the winter all I've gotten at the feeder are chickadees and the occasional nuthatch, so the start of sparrow season is a cause for celebration.