Snow Buntings

Oakes Rd. Grimsby ON. February 18th. 2021.  Until today, I don’t think I’ve ever posted two consecutive entries celebrating the same species. But, since last week’s Snow Bunting posting we have received two significant snow falls, so staying home has made sense: many roads are icy and some of my favoured trails are inaccessible. But today we needed to make a short trip to collect some yards of 2/8 cotton in pale yellow (You’d have to ask the weaver in my household for more about that.) and that took us in the right direction to follow up on yesterday’s report of another flock of Snow Buntings.

The bunting report specified that they were seen along a former road, now a wide path, that bisects a large field set aside for dog-walkers and their best-friend companions. The now much-reduced road ends abruptly at the rocky , ice-cramped, shoreline of Lake Ontario.  It can be quite scenic on a nice day, but better if you’re looking towards the lake and not back at the encroaching urbanisation. Scenic views as beauty are in the eye of the beholder but even the most accommodating might have found it difficult today as the stiff north-easterly wind tugged at our hats and coats, caused our eyes to stream and made minus 5 deg.C feel like minus 20.

The Snow Buntings were there, as reported, in a big flock of perhaps two or three hundred, it was quite a spectacle and surprisingly easy to find and follow. The birds gathered in milling carpets, shoulder to shoulder, focussing on the bare road surface presumably finding weed seeds or possibly the bits of grit needed for digestion, whatever the purpose they were front and centre. But they didn’t stay anywhere very long, a minute or two and they’d take off in a swirling, chittering cloud, make a wide, undulating swoop, circling around and settling again a little further along to resume the search.

Eyes watering and shooting almost blindly, I took many photos,. The results were surprisingly good and I was able to pick out at least one Lapland Longspur in the crowd. But Longspur or not, the day goes to Snow Buntings.