A small bunting that shows startling white wing-flashes as a flock rolls along a winter shingle tideline
Snow bunting — the wing pattern is the field mark.
Nature · Birds
Snow bunting
Scarce breeder and winter visitor · 16–17 cm
Plectrophenax nivalis — Calcariidae (longspurs and snow buntings)
The most northerly breeding passerine in the world, and in Britain a scarce nester on the highest Cairngorm plateaux plus a winter visitor to east-coast beaches and dunes. Winter flocks rolling along a tideline show startling white wing-flashes, which is where the name and the epithet nivalis, "snowy", come from. It breeds further north than any other songbird, right up to northern Greenland.
How to spot them
- ▸Big white wing-flashes in flight — a small bunting looking startlingly white-winged
- ▸Flocks running and rolling along a shingle beach or dune tideline in winter, hard to see when still
- ▸Breeding male is clean white with a black back, wingtips and central tail; bill black in summer, orange-yellow in winter
- ▸A sweet rippling, bubbling 'tirrirrirrip' call plus a sharp 'tew'
- ▸In summer, bare boulder-fields and snow patches on the highest Scottish plateaux
How to know it
The most northerly breeding songbird in the world, nesting to the far north of Greenland
Snow bunting — Plectrophenax nivalis.
In Britain it nests only on the highest Scottish plateaux, in boulder-fields beside late snow patches
Snow bunting — about 60 to 80 territories, chiefly in the Cairngorms.
Its species name means 'snowy', and in Gaelic it is an eun an t-sneachda, the snow bird
Snow bunting — Plectrophenax nivalis.
Some thirteen thousand winter on British beaches and dunes, arriving from Iceland and Fennoscandia
Snow bunting — BTO wintering estimate.
The male's black bill in summer turns orange-yellow for the winter, with the white plumage veiled buff
Snow bunting — the seasonal change is caused by feather wear, not a moult.
Quick-fire facts
- •Scientific name Plectrophenax nivalis; nivalis means 'snowy'
- •It is the world's most northerly breeding passerine, nesting to the far north of Greenland and on Svalbard
- •Britain's breeding population is tiny: about 60 territories (BTO BirdFacts, 2011), with a published estimate of around 79 pairs, almost all in the Cairngorms and north-west Highlands
- •Roughly 13,000 winter in Britain, chiefly on east-coast beaches, dunes and saltmarsh, arriving from Iceland and Fennoscandia
- •Amber-listed in Birds of Conservation Concern 5 (2021) and on Schedule 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981
- •It is not an Emberiza bunting: it belongs with the longspurs in the family Calcariidae
- •The breeding male's crisp black-and-white plumage is achieved not by a spring moult but by the buff feather tips wearing away over winter
- •Winter flocks are known as 'snowflakes' in some dialects, for the way they swirl along a beach
- •The male arrives on the breeding grounds well before the female, holding a territory among snow patches while the ground is still frozen
Drill it — 8 cards
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Sources
- British Trust for Ornithology — BirdFacts: Snow Bunting
- Rare Breeding Birds Panel — Rare Breeding Birds Panel 2023 report