I have begun to get reports of Snow Bunting observations and banding (or lack of same) over the past week. The birds are certainly making themselves known in Ontario but less so in other regions of the country. Whether this is due to a lack of birds or a lack of reporting observers/banders is hard to say, although their absence in Newfoundland (Darroch Whitaker) and along the St. Lawrence (Yann Rochepault) I find surprising.

Following is a collection of emails (and a few pictures) I’ve received over the past 5 days (since January 1st) that paint the current Snow Bunting picture:

West:

Hi Rick,
Small to moderate flocks of Snow Buntings are scattered pretty widely east of Calgary, especially where there are sources of grain. Unfortunately I don’t have a lead on any suitable banding sites though.
Marcel Gahbauer
Calgary AB

Hi Rick!
Things are still very much slow here, I was out over the holidays catching Snowy Owls and have seen more and more SNBU’s arriving. I’m still looking for sites to start baiting. I’m catching PIGR’s for now and hope that buntings will start showing up at my main site. Time will tell. I hope everyone else is doing better than I am here in the Peace River area of NW Alberta.
Cheers,
Mike Blom

Hi Rick,
We have relatively low numbers in the immediate area, but this is not unusual for this location and for this time of year. We are hoping that the birds will begin to gather at our cattle feeding locations and then we will have better success with baiting stations.
On the other hand, there are more SNBUs around this year than last, so we’re still hoping.
Harold Fisher
Nisbet Banding Station,
Prince Albert, Saskatchewan
53-17-11N, 105-39-15W

Ontario

Good morning,
Snow buntings showed up later than usual on our property this year: it was on Dec. 21, after a major storm which left about 30 cm of snow. They have been showing up every day since then and their numbers are slowly increasing day by day. I’m counting about 25 to 30 of them now, nowhere near the numbers we used to get in the past years (100 to 200). I’ll keep you posted if the numbers keep increasing to that level again.
Good luck with the banding!
Lise Balthazar
Sheridan Rapids Road
Lanark, Ontario

Hey Rick,
Buntings are back at my Bait sites near Fitzroy Harbour, currently a flock of around 100 and slowly growing. The plan is to head out in the next few days to start trapping. Given the snowfall and drifts here in the Ottawa Area, I actually have to access the bait sites with snowshoes, at least until I get a hard pack trail.
Fergus Nicoll

Hi Rick we have banded 198 snbu and 1 lalo before the end of December and banded 40 birds today [January 1st] with tons of retraps . There are some massive flocks in the area but it sounds like buntings are arriving south. have a look for timiskaming bands. We now have 2 birds that we banded last year that have comeback. Interesting we didn’t catch a single hatching year bird today.. Happy new-year and good banding everyone.
Bruce Murphy
Temiskaming

January 6: Hi Rick: we have caught almost 300 snbu and 2 lalo so far this season although198 of those were caught before January. We are still waiting for a big flock to find our food but have been enjoying many decent size flocks finding the corn. We have two retraps from last year and a recovery of David Lamble’s bird from Arthur Ontario. Looking forward to catching our first horned lark. Wishing other banders best of luck.
Bruce Murphy
Temiskaming

Dear Rick:
Had some good days so far — January 1 (15 Snow Buntings) — January 2 (207 Snow Buntings + 4 Horned Larks) — January 3 (257 Snow Buntings + 3 Mourning Doves) — January 4 (178 Snow Buntings). So nearly 700 Snow Buntings [banded] over the past 4 days. However, we have warm weather ahead and I expect the numbers to fall off by Monday or Tuesday. Have had a few birds returning from 2010 and 2011 — which is a surprise – also a foreigner — 2571-16495 — ASY-M — wing 108 — mass 37.4 with a fat score of 3 on January 3. Have not sent it in yet — have been without internet since December 26 — so a belated Happy New Year to you and yours……………….
David Lamble
Fergus

(Hi David:
Happy New Year to you folks as well!
Great numbers! Why is the return of some of your birds a surprise to you?
Rick)

Hello Rick:
I seldom get birds returning after more than 6 months — I am not certain why, but I suspect it is because of the wandering nature of the flocks in my area — it is the reason I was hoping to get some help with the analysis of of my retrap data — but I guess not. One interesting aspect of the returning birds from 2010 — each had been recaptured 6 or so times in 2010 — never again in 2011 or 2012 — now the beginnning of 2013. With all the birds I have banded over the past 5 years, I would expect to get many retraps/returns — but I simply do not — so the question is why and of course suggests some implications for estimation of longevity and population stability as well as size………………..
David Lamble
Fergus

Hi Rick
[January 4th] I have banded 55 SNBU , 35 F and 20 M using 1B’s and 1’s. I will be doing the Christmas count tomorrow.
Bill Read
Cambridge

Hello Rick:
The E. Harrow station has banded 3 days so far this season: Dec 30, 31/12 and Jan 3/13. We have about 8 cm of snow cover at present.
Totals banded to date:
SNBU: 38
HOLA: 55
LALO: 10 (We only had 4 all season 2 winters ago!)
And a few others: 2 Downy Woodpeckers, 1 White-crowned Sparrow, and 2 Mourning Doves.

We’re hoping to catch the Nothern Harrier that’s been hanging around here tomorrow. It killed (and ate) one of our birds today :-(. But with the new Bal-Chatri trap topper built by Bob Hall-Brooks we are keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll catch and band him this weekend.
Until next time,
Bob Hall-Brooks
East Harrow (near Windsor)

[January 6] “What a difference a day makes!” Today was a very strange day for banding. Unfortunately the weather, while still “coolish” (some would say “cold” for standing around in a garage waiting for the “Right Birds” to enter the walk-in ground traps), was “too good”, ie too nice for birds to want to seek out our bait corn. The snow cover is gradually being reduced, so they have easier access to natural sources like weed seeds, etc.
We banded a measly number, but quality species of birds today. TOTAL: 5 birds!
Lapland Longspur, 3: two SY (second year) males, one SY female.
White-crowned Sparrow, 1: SY, gender unknown (not possible to sex this time of year).
Red-breasted Nuthatch, 1: ASY (after second year) female.
Our totals to date for our 3 target birds are:
SNBU (Snow Bunting): 38
HOLA (Horned Lark): 55
LALO (Lapland Longspur): 13!
It was disappointing not to catch a single SNBU or HOLA today, but……the 3 LALOs were very satisfying and beautiful. Interestingly, 2 winters ago we only banded a TOTAL of 4 LALOs all season!
Bob Hall-Brooks
East Harrow

The Ruthven Park Snow Bunting Team (Nancy Furber, myself and anyone else that wants to join us…) started off like gangbusters on January 3rd. We had “real” Winter conditions: temperatures in the minuses and a good snow cover. Like clockwork the Snow Buntings arrived en masse with flocks totalling 1500+ in the fields. We caught and banded 110 of them. The females outnumbered the males by more than 2 to 1.
The next day however was very windy with gusts up to 55 km/hr. and drifting snow – which filled the trap tunnels almost as fast as we could clear them. We banded only 2 birds that day.
Today it was above freezing with light rain/sleet/snow. This resulted in many bare patches in the fields. These seem to attract the buntings more than our cut corn bait and, while small flocks would drop in to check things out, none entered the traps. So we’re sitting at 112 banded. The forecast (mild temperatures and rain) does not auger well….
Rick Ludkin
Ruthven Park Banding Station
Cayuga, ON

Quebec

Hi Rick,
The Snow buntings arrived with the snow a couple of weeks ago. There are flocks of about 100 birds (with more showing up every day) coming to the corn in my driveway in Barnston-Ouest….now I just need some banders!
Carl Bromwich

Hello Rick,
We do not have a snow bunting for the moment here.
All the team is ready.
Good luck with all
Yann Rochepault
Association le Balbuzard
Québec

Hi Rick, nice to hear that you guys will be seeing some SNBU this winter 🙂
Here [Rimouski] I have heard that SNBU have started showing up in good numbers at
feeders and should therefore start banding this weekend.
Alex Anctil

East Coast

Hi Rick
SNBUs have apparently arrived at the Wilson Farm but we haven’t been out there to try catching yet – still trying to reach the farmer by phone.
Cheers
Tony (& Dorothy)
A.W. Diamond,Ph.D.
University of New Brunswick

Hi Rick,
Dorothy here from Stanley NB. I was just out to see how many SNBU are at the North Tay farm where we banded 100 last year. There is a flock of about 100 there now, all feeding on corn thrown out by Brian Wilson, the farm owner. I set two traps out to get the birds accustomed to seeing them, and baited them with feed. The wind is so strong there on this hilltop that it scatters the feed far and wide, so I will have to wait until much of that scattered feed is eaten, before they will come into the traps. Pigeons, bluejays, crows, and starlings also eat there. I saw all unbanded SNBU except for 1 banded. They are very flighty in the strong winds. We will go out tomorrow again and see what we can catch.
Dorothy Diamond

[January 6]
Hi Rick
The farmer says our birds arrived around Christmas. There was a flock of 100 or so when Dorothy started baiting with open traps yesterday.
This morning we caught our first birds, 5 (4 males) out of a flock of about 40, in a bit under 2 hours. Also 1 BCCH and 1 CORE, both firsts for this project here.
One of the SNBUs had what I was calling “pox” on both feet, really quite badly. I tried putting a normal band (1B) on but had to take it off & use a 1A instead, on the other leg because when we removed the first band the leg bled quite a lot. I was able to staunch the blood with kleenex & it looked worse than I think it was. The photo shows how extraordinarily elongated the hind and some other claws are.
Some site pics attached; I though others trapping on huge fields in the middle of nowhere might be jealous of our situation, where we can sit in the vehicle about 30 feet (sorry, 9 metres) away from the traps & can use the farmer’s loo if we drink too much tea…
In the view from behind the vehicle, the traps are just behind the shovel handle in front of the vehicle.
Cheers
Tony
A.W. Diamond,Ph.D.
University of New Brunswick

None yet in Stewiacke Nova Scotia
Barb McLaughlin

Only news is no news, haven’t heard of any lately or seen any myself. Don’t think many winter here, at least not where the birders are. Just read your latest blogs, got me excited for spring migration when they’ll finally return here. Keep up the great reports!
Darroch Whitaker
Rocky Harbour
Newfoundland

So there you have it. A real mix across the country. Please keep the updates (and photos!!!) coming. [Send to: rludkin ‘at’ hotmail.com]
Rick