Description:
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. Globally they breed around the arctic from Scandinavia to Alaska, Canada and Greenland and migrate south in winter. They are a scarce breeding species in the UK, in Scotland, making tham an Amber List species. They are more widespread in winter in the north and east when residents are joined by continental birds.
Where to see them
Best looked for in winter on coastal sites in Scotland and eastern England (usually as far south as Kent - but during 2010 in West Sussex).
When to see them
Most commonly seen in winter, arriving from late September and leaving in February and March.
What they eat
Seeds and insects
We were lucky ernough to see this confiding Snow Bunting on 22nd October, 2010, which had made a home on the South Downs Way on the top of Kithurst Hill, where hikers, bikers, bird-spotters, photographers, and walkers with dogs all went past without the little Snow Bunting being bothered at all. It was possible to get within 1 metre of the little bird. I was using my trusty
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Kithurst Hill, West Sussex October 2010
Nikon D300S and 200-400 Lens and the settings were f6.3, 1/640th sec, and ISO 200
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Kithurst Hill, West Sussex October 2010
Nikon D300S and 200-400 Lens and the settings were f5.6, 1/1000th sec, and ISO 200
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