1670 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part 3 



Away from the station they roosted out of the wind in shallow niches 

 in sandstone outcrops. A single gully often had several such roosts. 

 During the early spring the number of buntings at a given roost 

 fluctuated considerably; anywhere from 1 to 24 birds might be found 

 roosting together, and even the most favored sites were unoccupied 

 at times. The birds slept squatted down with their heads turned 

 back and their bills tucked under their scapulars. Most slept in 

 shadowy niches, but some in direct sunlight. Even at —25° F we 

 never saw them huddled together for warmth as Salomonsen reports. 



After territories were established in the gullies near the coast, only 

 a few buntings roosted there, but these continued to occupy the same 

 roosts. New flocks were arriving daily, and more buntings than ever 

 inhabited the coastal slopes during late May. Although daily maxi- 

 mum air temperatures did not reach thawing until May 28, evapora- 

 tion and heat absorption from imbedded grains of wind-blown sand 

 produced deep pits along the fronts of snowbanks that made excellent 

 shelters where the newcomers of both sexes roosted together. The 

 largest number of buntings seen in one of these snow roosts was 14. 

 While these banks were accessible to predators, mammals could not 

 climb them without noisily shattering the ice crystals that formed 

 during the cool hours. 



During May the buntings roosted principally between 9 p.m. and 

 2 a.m. A few birds, especially the hungry new arrivals, moved about 

 at all hours. Most birds seemed to feed heavily between 6 and 8 p.m., 

 just before going to roost. With the influx of new males and females 

 and the start of courtship, roosting became less regular. By early 

 June it was decidedly irregular, but even then most buntings roosted 

 when the sun was lowest. Once courtship was over, roosting became 

 regular again. No communal roosting was observed during the 

 nesting period. The males usually roosted on a rock or bank within 

 their territories while the females incubated or brooded on the nests. 



In August the mixed flocks of adults and young fanned out to roost 

 among the rocks on steep banks. As these flocks gradually became 

 larger, some birds roosted on rocky slopes, others among boulders in 

 the nearly dry stream beds. On August 21st we flushed 30 or more 

 buntings roosting under a huge snowbank undercut by running water; 

 the number of droppings showed this roost had been used for some 

 time. 



During August and September a few birds continued to roost singly 

 or in small groups in the sandstone outcrops, rock piles, and mud 

 cracks, and the gully roosts near the coast again became popular. 

 But the large flocks, some containing a hundred or more birds by 

 September, commonly roosted on the open tundra where the ground 

 was eroded and hummocky. Occasionally Lapland longspurs roosted 



