Yesterday was very busy. This picture was taken in Lanark County but could have been here….yesterday. -NC

For the past week we’ve been cookin’. We got some COLD temperatures and we got some snow and we know that these two ingredients are necessary for Snow Bunting banding here in far southern Ontario. From the 6th to yesterday, 7 days, we banded 405 Snow Buntings for an average of 58 per day.

Yesterday was very busy: we did 90 and closed up only because new, fresh snow began to blow/drift into the traps covering the cut corn. I put the traps out and finished baiting them at 7:30. Before I even got back to the car, a distance of about 30 meters, they were into the traps going after the corn.

Because there were so many, I decided to “ring and fling” – put a band on the bird, determine its age and sex and then let it go without taking any measurements or weight. I simply didn’t want to hold onto the birds any longer than I had to in these cold conditions – and I was getting 20+ birds out of the traps at each “round”.

When we first started to catch buntings in late January we were getting more than double the number of females to males. This is pretty normal for this area. Males like to stay farther north or northeast as they will leave for the breeding grounds to set up territories well before the females. And it pays to get back early as territory holders tend to hold onto them. But….if the weather deteriorates – colder and/or more snow – then the males will push farther south (as will the females). In the big rush yesterday the female to male ratio was almost 1:1. So males are feeling the weather and moving down.

It was cold again last night and we got about 5 cm. of fresh snow. I was expecting another “big” day. Much to my surprise there were NO birds at the site. After I put down the traps 7 flew by and then a few more dropped in to check things out but I never saw the big flocks that were around yesterday. Hard to figure as I have been putting out cut corn in the afternoons (when I don’t band so the birds can feed without interruption) so I can “hold” them. Perhaps the snow flurries in the afternoon covered the bait piles over and the birds gave up and left. (Although I find this hard to believe as I have found Snow Buntings sitting on a foot of new snow covering bait piles from the day before.)

Horned Larks cleaning up the scraps….outside….the traps. -MMG

Anyway, they were gone and we ended up banding just 8 plus one Horned Lark. We caught 12 larks that had been banded previously. It is interesting to watch larks and buntings around the traps. Unbanded larks walk around and around the traps picking up all they can find outside of them. Some may even venture their heads into the entry tunnels but rarely go in – even though the bait might be only a few centimeters away. Buntings don’t have a problem with this at all. They fly in and hit those tunnels and are in and on the corn before you know it. Yesterday the traps were filling before I even got back to the car. So why the behavioural difference? Snow Buntings nest in rocky holes, tunnels and crevices and aren’t deterred in the least by these narrow entrances that they must navigate to get to the corn. Larks on the other hand are birds of wide open spaces with low vegetation. Tunnels are foreign to them; they don’t know how to work them. Interestingly, and this showed up this morning when we retrapped the 12, once they have reached the bait – have figured out how to do it, so to speak – they have no problem getting into the traps again.

2 Horned Larks hunkered down in the loose snow, getting out of the wind. I wouldn’t be surprised if they spent the night covered over by this “insulation”. -MMG

So where’d they go? A friend of mine reported a flock of 140+ along Regional Road 9 about 5 kilometers south of York. Might be them; might be another group altogether. I have retrapped 3 birds that Mike Furber (on Dry Lake Road, 12.5 km from my site) banded at the end of January. And we know from our experience that these birds range over a large area in their search for sustenance. But they know where the food is….so I think they’ll be back. Maybe tomorrow with this new snow and continuing cold.

2 Horned Lark subspecies. The one on the left is likely the praticola variety (note the white supercilium stripe0 while the one on the right is the usual alpestris (yellow stripe). The praticola is also smaller and it shows.    -MMG

Rick