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Buntings

 

 

Snow buntings migrate in November too. Our encounters with them can be at seashores as well as at Lake Peipsi, in fields, at roads...  

 

They are passerines with powerful bodies, length less than twenty centimetres, weight 20 up to 40 grams, presently seed-eaters. In autumn males and females have similar plumages – the males have wings with slightly wider white areas, and just slightly more contrasting-coloured plumages; the females have the customarily more modest look. Young birds look a little dirty, head and wings reddish-brown. Eyes are brown as the beak which has a dark tip, and the feet are black. Looking at the ones photographed by Arne we can see that buntings have a very good “camouflage dress”, often we don’t notice them until the group rises in flight. Sometimes we can meet flocks consisting of hundreds of birds.

 

The number of winterers of course depends on the severity of the winter; up to a thousand birds may remain in Estonia.

 

Snow bunting observations: LINK