An early Christmas present: young male Snow Bunting! Note the extensive white wing patch that identifies this as a male – even at a good distance. -DOL
I have a strategy for catching Snow Buntings: go after Horned Larks. I’ve been waiting for Larks to show up in my banding area at the York Airport since the beginning of December. A couple of days ago I saw half a dozen feeding on some spilled corn kernels at the corner of the gravel pad that farm vehicles use when they’re loading the crop. I use this pad as my base. Big kernels are pretty large for these small birds but they were giving it a try. That day I gave them an alternative – cut corn pieces, the bait I’ve been using for years now. The next day they had switched to this much easier to ingest alternative. And their flock had increased to about 20 birds. Then we got a couple of centimeters of snow and the temperature plunged into the minuses – in fact it went down to -8 last night. Time to try banding!
Male Horned Lark. Note the extensive black areas contrasting with yellow chin and face. -DOL
I arrived early this morning to find a few larks on the corn. I put down 4 traps and refurbished the bait piles. Soon I had a group of about 20 larks around the traps. I was just debating whether to extract the one bird that had entered when I spotted a loose flock of….Snow Buntings! Flying in from the East.
Webster’s dictionary defines “serendipity” as “an apparent aptitude for making fortunate discoveries, accidentally.” This definition suits foraging Snow Buntings to a T. They congregate in these loose flocks as they wing their way over the landscape, always on the look-out for food sources, which often are made evident by other birds feeding. And that’s the way it was this morning. As soon as the buntings saw the larks around the traps they dropped in to check out the possibilities. Now I don’t think these were “resident” buntings; i.e., birds that are going to spend the Winter in the general area. [In our experience, “general area” for buntings would be a circle 25 km in diameter.] Rather, I think they were a migrating group heading further SW. But food is food and they would need it to continue their journey. [As it turned out almost all the buntings caught were not carrying any furcular fat – the furculum is where birds store their fat/energy.]
Female Snow Bunting. Note the much drabber wing. -DOL
Initially they were pretty “flighty” – would alight, scamper about the traps, and then take off only to circle around and descend again. Very much like shorebirds. This went on for 5 frustrating minutes or so, but then the moment of decision came and they stormed the traps; I caught 13: 8 females, 5 males. Once banded and released they continued their flight to the SW, most with a crop full of cracked corn. Over the next hour they didn’t reappear; they had continued their journey. But….the Horned Larks returned. I think this is a “captive” flock – birds that will spend the Winter in the near area, close to a reliable, good food source. So it’s important that I keep the spot baited. I was able to trap another 6 larks. And I had hopes of catching the Lapland Longspur that had joined them but it wasn’t to be. Banding came to a very quick halt when an American Kestrel landed on the top of one of the traps (much to the chagrin of the lark inside – which wasn’t harmed). I jumped out of the car and chased it off….but only to a treetop about 100 meters away from where it could keep the traps in view. I wasn’t going to catch any more birds while it was in the area. I packed it in; but what a treat: 13 early Snow Buntings!
Female Horned Lark – washed out colouring compared to the male. -DOL
Rick
