Snow Buntings are large buntings, with striking 'snowy' plumages. Males in summer have all white heads and underparts contrasting with a black mantle and wing tips. Females are a more mottled above. In autumn and winter birds develop a sandy/buff wash to their plumage and males have more mottled upperparts.
Once the breeding season is over, snow buntings lose most of their extra fat to fly back to the southern regions where they continue to live until next season.
Unless you fancy a trip to the high arctic in summer, winter is the time to go looking for Snow Buntings. Look for them in crop stubble and along lakeshores ...
How to identify. Black and white during the summer, snow buntings become buffy and streaky in the winter. However, when they fly, snow buntings still look black ...
Snow Bunting has 60 Territories in Britain (Summer). 60 Territories. POPULATION SIZE. 128.6% expansion in number of occupied 10-km squares in UK breeding season ...
South of the Arctic these are strictly winter birds, arriving in late fall, generally departing at the first signs of spring. In summer they retire to barren ...
Snow Buntings spend the summer on the tundra, where nesting typically occurs in rock crevices. Nests are placed at the back of crevices, out of sight of ...