I like my Snow Bunting/Horned Lark/Lapland Longspur banding site close to the York Airport. It’s conveniently close to my home (1.5 km away) and provides good winter habitat for these species….if the conditions are “right”; i.e., cold temperatures and snow on the ground. The catching area is on a gravel loading pad at the edge of a large soybean field – open country, well away from trees and hedgerow shrubs, which the birds prefer as they have an unobstructed view of oncoming avian predators.
Now, there’s quite a lot of this open agricultural land in rural Haldimand. The fact that I get birds coming to the baited traps is the result of a well thought-out plan enacted over time (months, years) requiring a great deal of patience. As I’ve written about many times before, I first attract Horned Larks to the cut corn bait. Northern-nesting Larks return to the area earlier than Snow Buntings and before snow is on the ground. Once they find the luring food they come consistently, not only day after day but, as retrapped birds clearly show, year after year. Snow Buntings, on their winter meanderings in search of food, will notice other feeding birds – in this case the larks – and will drop in to check things out. They, in turn, will return day after day when the conditions are right and the food is consistently available.
But this has been a topsy-turvy Winter so far: we had a cold snap with snow in the first half of December and I ended up banding 59 Horned Larks and 4 Lapland Longspurs.
An early and promising start to the season, however, this was followed by warm temperatures which dissipated the snow and the resulting open country caused “my” birds to spread out as food was quite available everywhere. The last time I caught a Horned Lark was on December 15th. By that point I had caught 59 larks and 4 Lapland Longspurs but NO SNOW BUNTINGS. (I got 55 buntings over the next two days at Marnie’s location on Irish Line. But then they too disappeared with the loss of snow.) When we got a fresh drop of snow starting Wednesday night followed by a dramatic drop in the temperature of about 20 degrees C. I thought maybe we’ll get another “flow” of birds to the site. That afternoon I put out some cut corn.
Yesterday I went to my banding site and found a few Horned Larks in the bait area. Seven dropped in and 3 found their way into the traps….but that was it. I left after an hour but in the afternoon when I returned to refurbish the bait piles there was a group of about 25 in the immediate area. Promising.
However, this morning when I arrived shortly before 8:00 there wasn’t a bird to be seen anywhere and this continued for half an hour. And then a small flock (~25) Horned Larks flew in to check out the traps. They were VERY skittish: landing, approaching, then flying up only to circle around and then quickly returning only to repeat the ritual. But after a couple of encirclements, they took off to the East and it was quiet again.
Twenty minutes later a group of 35 larks AND two Snow Buntings flew in. Again, skittish behaviour but I did catch 3 larks. Then they were off….but not for good: they alit in the field about 200 m. out. After awhile the flock returned – at least I thought it was the flock but…it was comprised of at least 20 Snow Buntings. So, new birds. Six of these quickly moved into the traps and, thus, I got my first Snow Buntings of the season. Hurray!
After a short visit the buntings flew off and didn’t return. But the flock of larks (with a couple of buntings) moved back and forth between the far roosting area and the trap area – but I didn’t catch any more. I would like to know what determines the timing of this ebb and flow. When they’re sitting out there what prompts them to come back for another feed? And what causes them to fly out to their resting spot?
As numbers were still relatively low, I decided to lift the traps and give them unfettered access to the food with the hope that this would ensure they would return tomorrow. After awhile birds seem to learn what’s in store for them. The arrival of my white car (the “Buntingmobile”) and my emergence from it with the yellow pail of cut corn is like the sound of a bell that caused Pavlov’s dogs to salivate. At this point, no sooner are the traps set out and baited than the birds are winging their way to them and often arrive for a feed before I even get back to the car.
If these Winter conditions hold, we’ll soon be experiencing this again.
Rick