SNOW BUNTINGS & LAPLAND LONGSPURS

The past couple weeks I have been fortunate to photograph Lapland Longspurs and Snow Buntings. They have been passing through here each day and landing in an old gravel area next a road that leads into my driveway. Each morning I have been staked out by some small spruce trees, waiting for them to land and feed on weeds and seeds.

Lapland Longspur

Snow Bunting

Lapland Longspur

Lapland Longspur

I have spent many hours watching the longspurs and buntings... and have begun to understand their quirky flight habits. It seems that each flock closely resembles a kindergarten class. I see the "line leader" swoop in and perch on a taller weed or rock. He almost always is the most colorful male of the flock and peruses the area and may peck a few seeds. He then either flies off and brings back the rest of the flock or the flock joins him in his newly found area.

Snow Bunting

I slowly move towards them taking a few steps and then waiting five minutes or so... then repeat until they are used to my presence. This goes on until the "line leader" cheeps and they are off with their flashing, white wings. More often than not, the flock will fly in a large circle and land almost in the same spot or a short distance away. Once, they flew in the circle and I had them land a few feet from me... to close to focus with the 400.

Snow Bunting

John Burroughs rises to his best literature as he speaks of the Snow Buntings ("Far and Near"): "The only one of our winter birds that really seems a part of the winter, that seems to be born of the whirling snow, and to be happiest when storms drive thickest and coldest, is the Snow Bunting. The real snowbird, with plumage copied from the fields where the drifts hide all but the tops of the tallest weeds, large spaces of pure white touched here and there with black and gray and brown. Its twittering call and chirrup coming out of the white obscurity is the sweetest and happiest of all winter bird sounds. It is like the laughter of children. The fox-hunter hears it on the snowy hills, the farmer hears it when he goes to fodder his cattle from the distant stack, the country schoolboy hears it as he breaks his way through the drifts toward the school. It is ever a voice of good cheer and contentment."

Snow Bunting

It is a celebration for me, to have the opportunity to observe these beautiful tundra birds at close range. I think they are the most uniquely marked birds I see in the late fall and arguably the most docile along with the Lapland Longspurs. I look forward to the return of these beautiful birds in the spring... adorning their gorgeous breeding plumage.

Lapland Longspur... spring breeding plumage

Snow Bunting... spring breeding plumage

"One bleak March day,...a flock of snow-buntings came...Every few moments one of them would mount into the air, hovering about with quivering wings and warbling a loud, merry song with some very sweet notes. They were a most welcome little group of guests, and we were sorry when, after loitering around a day or two, they disappeared toward their breeding haunts." Theodore Roosevelt