Snow Bunting

Plectrophenax nivalis

The snow bunting is a passerine bird in the family Calcariidae. It is an Arctic specialist, with a circumpolar Arctic breeding range throughout the northern hemisphere. There are small isolated populations on a few high mountain tops south of the Arctic region, including the Cairngorms in central Scotland and the Saint Elias Mountains on the southern Alaska-Yukon border, as well as the Cape Breton Highlands. The snow bunting is the most northerly recorded passerine in the world. Source

Where it is now

In the last 8 weeks this bird was recorded 2,700 times across 66 areas (each area is a 5 degree square).

See the Snow Bunting on the live map

Movement and weather

Over the weeks it was present in the past year, its centre in North America ranged from 44°N in December to 61°N in October, about 1,900 km apart.

Arrival dates

The week it was first heard regularly in each region, after at least six weeks away. Dates differ from south to north, so a region has a range.

Download every area as CSV

Figures are effort corrected and come from automatic sound identification, which makes mistakes. How this is measured and how it compares with human observers.