This could just as well be titled "Constant Companions". They're the ones who are with you nearly every place you go, one of the warp threads in the fabric of your area. In your yard, in the parks, at your favorite patch... everywhere it seems. But because you always see them, you stop really seeing them sometimes.
I don't know who it is for you but for me (and probably most birders in my part of the world), Dark-eyed Junco would be right near the top of the list. I sometimes catch myself saying "just a junco" when I bring an a bit of movement under a bush into view. I gotta stop that - gotta scratch that "just"! It's a junco, a bird to be appreciated on its own merits.
They're handsome little birds - no flashy colors or intricate patterns, just simple elegant good looks. Black head, brown back, a flash of white in the tail when it flies and a little pink bill for the tiniest splash of color.
Easy for beginning birders to identify, easy to identify remotely for your non-birding friends. "We are wondering what this bird is that's been hanging out in the yard." "What does it look like?" "It has a black head and some brown and a pink beak." Thank you, pink beak! It makes things so easy!
Of course, since they're birds they don't always make it easy. Sometimes their heads are't black and they're covered with streaks and their beaks are kinda dark and not so obvious. WT ???
Kids just have to rebel and dress differently, I guess. They'll be over it soon enough. The first time I saw a junco fledgling, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which sparrow it was. It's such fine streaking - maybe savannah or Lincoln's? It's kinda kicking at the dirt, like a fox sparrow but it should be so much darker and splotchier on front. And it's making this cricket-like sound... and then it flew, and I saw the tail feathers. Aha! And then a junco came over and started feeding it, which seemed like another good clue.
The bird above was in really fresh plumage - the brown tips will wear off the crown feathers shortly and give the head its solid black hood. Other than that, a bird in totally fresh plumage looks pretty much like a bird in totally worn plumage. If you like consistency of appearance, these are the birds for you. No fall-warblerism with juncos.
We see them at our cabin (above) and usually have a few of them around the garden at home in SF all year. More of them show up in winter, but they don't seem to flock much. You see little family groups, but not swarms of them - even at the feeders. They like a variety of foods, visiting my thistle and sunflower feeders daily, though they often seem to prefer eating the spilled seed from the ground rather than perching on the feeder. When we had a (shelled) peanut feeder at our cabin a few years ago, one male really liked them. I spent an entertaining afternoon watching him try to teach one of his kids how to get them from the feeder.
They also like suet a lot, though they seem to prefer the fallen bits of it as well. This one was eating a little, but knocking a lot more out then flying down to eat from the ground. (Since I was digiscoping, it was tough to follow the action to the ground.)
Lookin' sharp.
[A little bit more... ] I'm betraying my west-coast-ocentrism again. I described my local juncos as if everyone's juncos look the same. But one of the (many) cool things about dark-eyed juncos is how much regional variation there is in their appearance. There are at least 4-5 distinctly different subspecies, and a bit of variation within the subspecies to boot. Most of the birds on the west coast are Oregon juncos, there are Pink-sided and Grey-headed juncos in the Rockies, and Slate-colored in the east. I'm drawing a blank on the other(s). Time to hit Wikipedia, I guess.