In winter, look for a snow bunting on shorelines, fields and weedy roadsides. In spring, these birds head to their Arctic breeding grounds.
How to Identify a Snow Bunting
Updated on Dec. 10, 2024
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What Does a Snow Bunting Look Like?
White feathers with rusty accents help snow buntings blend right into a winter landscape. Look for these buntings foraging in flocks for weed seeds in fields or along shorelines. When the flock flies a short distance to a better spot, they flutter like windblown snow, which inspires their “snowflake” nickname. They may form mixed flocks with similar winter species, such as horned larks.
This species is a medium sized songbird with a small bill; larger than an American goldfinch or dark-eyed junco but smaller than a robin. In summer, male birds are mostly white with a black back. Females have more streaks on their backs.
Meet more beautiful bunting bird species you should know.
What Do Snow Buntings Eat?
Snow buntings primarily eat weed, grass and other plant seeds, as well as some insects such as flies, caterpillars and spiders. They look for food on the ground, so you won’t typically see them at your bird feeders, but they may eat cracked corn.
“I was so thrilled to see snow buntings (above) arrive at my feeder. I have only seen a handful in the years I’ve lived here. It was difficult to capture them in action because they flew in to feed only for a minute before flying away again,” says Birds & Blooms reader Isabelle Marozzo of Norland, Ontario.
Learn how to identify an indigo bunting.
Snow Bunting Sounds
Listen for the males’ finch-like songs and buzzy, rattling calls.
Bird sounds courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Find out what a lazuli bunting looks like.
Snow Bunting Range
These spunky sparrow-like birds nest farther north than any other passerine. Male snow buntings head to their breeding grounds in the high Arctic in early April. During this part of the year, their homeland is still covered in snow, and temperatures are as low as 22 degrees below zero. In winter, they head south to open fields, shorelines and weedy roadsides across all but the southernmost U.S.
Next, learn all about painted buntings.
