Longspurs and snow buntings | Calcariidae

IJsgorzen en sneeuwgorzen | Escribanos nivales y lapones

The family is named for the hind toe: the claw is long and almost straight, longer than the toe itself, and belongs to birds that live walking on flat, treeless ground. They are stocky seed-eaters with a short conical bill, long pointed wings and a fast, low flight, and they walk rather than hop. The family is small and wholly northern: open tundra and boulder field in summer, coast, saltmarsh and stubble in winter. Summer and winter plumages diverge further than in almost any other passerine family — the crisply marked male of June is a brown, streaked bird by October. With no song post above the plain, the song comes in a short song flight: a climb, then a glide down on stiff wings. The nest sits on the ground among stones or in a tussock. The group has been placed in a family of its own since around 2010, apart from the buntings of the Old World.