The Snow Buntinga Sure Sign of Winter

Up here in the North Country of Wisconsin, when the depths of winter begin to set in, the open, snow-swept fields often seem foreboding and lifeless. The birds of the spring and summer have gone to warmer climates and only a few of the hardier winter birds remain foraging for food on the bleak snow-covered landscape.

As winter deepens, we often begin to see flocks of nearly white birds -- people call them Snowbirds, but their correct name is Snow Bunting. They are about seven inches long and look stocky and plump. They are mostly white on their head, neck, butt, and undersides, but their wings and tails have a mixture of black and white. They are actually birds of the arctic tundra -- areas such as Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia and Siberia, migrating southward as they follow their food supply. For the most part, they do not winter further south than Illinois or New York, but have been seen as far south as Kansas and Virginia.

Forced south, not by the bitter cold or deep snow cover as much as the scarcity of food, moving back northward as early as February as conditions improve. These hardy birds will be seen playing and singing during the severest of snow storms, even when the temperature dips to thirty degrees below zero. In the spring and summer, Snow Buntings build bulky nests of stems, grass and moss lined with feathers and fur hair in rock crevices and in cavities in sandy banks - but will also nest in man-made nest boxes. They la ...