Songbird Snowstorm
01-30-2008 - The flock of small birds whirls around the hayfield like a snow squall finally coming to rest on the ground in front of me. Aptly named, the snow bunting is a bird of the high Arctic in the summer and cold Vermont fields during the winter.
According to reports on Vermont eBird, an online database for Vermont bird sightings, the earliest flocks arrived this year during the last week of October. Although the species tends to be nomadic in winter, Addison County is usually a stronghold for large flocks.
During the winter males are brownish with a striped back, but underneath these dark feather tips, the back feathers are solid black and the body feathers are pure white. He will wear down the feather tips by actively rubbing them on snow to become perfectly white and black for mating in the spring.
By early April males begin arriving back on the Arctic breeding grounds. Temperatures can still dip as low as -20 F with snow covering the ground. Males defend territories that include rocky areas used for nest sites, but they still forage and roost at night together in flocks of up to 80 birds. Females wisely delay their return for another six weeks.
Pasted from <http://feeds.feedburner.com/VermontCenterForEcostudies?format=xml>
2008-01-04T08:03:25-06:00 | Kent McFarland
Thanks to www.VTecostudies.org
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