We’ve had a good run! Although Marnie’s Irish Line site produced 55 Snow Buntings over two days in the middle of December, we didn’t really get good Canadian Winter weather until the middle of January. And for about a month (starting on January 16th and running till February 15th) we were blessed with cold temperatures (sometimes bitterly so) and snow. Bunting weather! It’s still amazing to me how these little birds (weighing between 30-35 grams) seem to withstand severe cold elements with such ease. In fact, research carried out at the University of Rimouski by Francois Vezina has shown that the birds have much more difficulty dealing with warm temperatures than with cold.
For 29 almost consecutive days we ran either the York Airport site or Marnie’s Irish Line site….sometimes both on the same day. And with good success.
Totals for the Airport: January – 484; February – 454; Total – 938.
Totals for Irish Line: December – 55; January – 347; February – 518; Total – 920
This gives us an overall total for the two sites of 1,858.
Looking at data generated by the Canadian Snow Bunting Network, we’ve seen that male Snow buntings tend to winter farther north than females. Our sites here in far southern Ontario back this up; usually we catch more than two females for every male. But perhaps due to the cold sustained over a month there has been a movement of more males to our area. The Airport had a ratio of 1.6 females to every male; Irish Line, which is only a bit farther south had a ration of 1.8:1. Interestingly, the Irish Line site went from a ratio of 2.24 females in January to 1.68 females in February to each male. We certainly got more males this Winter than we have in the past few years.
With the snow melting and the fields opening up, is this the end of the Snow Bunting season for us? There’s no question that snow is a prerequisite for them and if we lose it (as we are now) then it’s unlikely that we’ll see them again this Winter. Still, there’s some snow in the forecast. But…I must say that I’ve become a weather forecast skeptic, an “I’ll believe it when I see it” sort of guy. So we’ll see. It would be nice to hit 2,000 for the season….
Lise Balthazar and her partner Nat live in Lanark County. Lise attracts large numbers of Snow Buntings and Nat, an expert photographer, takes some great shots of them….which Lise kindly passes on to me. I’ll post a few. Note that almost all of them are males – Lanark county is north and east of us….closer to the nesting grounds.
Rick