THE SNOW BUNTING 
By MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT 
The National Association of Audubon Societies 
Educational Leaflet No. 30 
No matter what the weather may have been in December and January, 
February, in New England, is sure to be a month wherein winter brings 
all the changes from soft days, rain or sleet-storms to deep, trackless, 
obliterating snows. If the winter has been clement and open at the 
beginning, the insect-eating, resident birds — -Nuthatches, Woodpeckers, 
Chickadees, etc., — will be numerous ; but if February lives up to its reputa- 
tion of 
“When the days begin to lengthen, 
The cold begins to strengthen,” 
The Finch 
Family 
we must rely upon the seed-eating birds to be our companions until the 
first courageous spring migrants appear. 
All winter we have had with us members of the family of Fringillidce, 
or Finches and Sparrows, that have come either in 
lingering flocks or merely as birds of passage ; the 
Goldfinch in sober winter dress, the stocky Purple 
Finch, the handsome White-throated Sparrow, the sociable Tree Sparrow 
or ‘Winter Chippy,” chiefly distinguishable by its larger size from the 
gentle little summer resident of the hair-lined nest ; the Slate-colored 
Junco, trim of figure, dressed in clear gray, with sleek white vest and 
identifying light beak. In addition to these have come, perhaps, if cone- 
bearing trees are near, a mixed flock of American and White-winged 
Crossbills — those strange birds of varied red plumage, beaks crossed at 
the tips, and clear metallic calls. 
In spring we may predict with reasonable accuracy the coming of the 
birds that are summer residents, and the time of passage of the migrants 
that nest further north, but the comings and goings of the winter birds 
are fraught with entire uncertainty. Several days will pass when my 
lunch-counter in the old apple-tree, with its sloping roof of wood that 
keeps off rain and snow, will be without a single 
visitor ; then, without rhyme or reason, the birds will 
swarm about it like bees about buckwheat — birds of 
all sizes, from the Blue Jay to the merry little Kinglets. 
Five birds of the North there are that I never expect to see during 
an open winter — the Snowy Owl, the Pine Grosbeak, the Redpoll, the 
Lapland Longspur that leaves the print of a long hind toe in the snow 
to tell of its coming, and the Snow Bunting — all but the Owl belonging 
to the great Finch family. When thesb appear we may know that even 
if we have had but a light snowfall there have been great Arctic storms, 
scattering the birds before their fury. 
117 
Winter 
Wanderers 
