Snow Bunting Row
These Snow Buntings are all lined up and ready to launch to the north soon as they continue to molt into a brighter, whiter snowy color every day. Birds are getting their feathers set for spring and to look their best when finding a mate. What does this arrangement on the roof look like to you? Caption it!
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Now that the Horned Larks have had to surrender their crown of “Best Camouflage in the Grasslands” Snow Buntings like this one have claimed the throne. When viewing them from the front at their level the cap and collar stand out a bit with brown and orange tones, but the bird is otherwise becoming one more little pile of snow. If you have a deep snow cover keep an eye on fields, especially agricultural, plus the sides of driveways and roads where plows have scraped up some of the earth. This is the best time of the year to find their fluttering flocks descending on any exposed...
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Earlier today I mentioned that the Snow Buntings have taken the current crown for best line of defense with their white feathers blending in to the snow-covered fields and grasslands across much of the continent. This uncommon view of one perched on a tree branch takes away that camouflage but leaves us with a beautiful sight against a perfectly deep, blue sky on a chilly February day. Our birds better hurry up and find a great feeding spot because they are going to need the calories this weekend. Valentine’s Day is going to be utterly frigid as we plunge to below-zero temperatures as...
Read MoreSnow Bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis)
While our winter raptor surveys have been rather quiet lately, we have caught glimpses of some other visitors from the high arctic: the Snow Bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis). Our intern, Alex Shipherd, and I have seen these small sparrow-like birds for the past several weeks hanging out around the airport eating grit off the road’s edge and waddling through the deep snow in the fields. I have to say these have become one of my favorite seasonal birds as they just look like winter! Elyse Henshaw Conservation Technician
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It is early enough in the avian wintering season that both the earth and the birds – in this case, Snow Buntings (Plectrophenax nivalis) – are brown. We do not have a solid snow cover yet, and it is amazing how well this plumage is designed to help them blend in to the ground. The Snow Bunting camouflage looks like brown grass and, somehow, a rocky, sandy and rough earth, with their wings showing off the darker pattern of what the tundra and short grasslands look like now. Notice how well these birds keep themselves just off the surface even while engaged in feeding, hiding their...
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