Longspurs and snow buntings | Calcariidae

IJsgorzen en sneeuwgorzen | Escribanos nivales y lapones

These birds belong in open, treeless country, from tundra and short-grass prairie to bare coast, and are built for walking on the ground there, with a long, almost straight claw on the hind toe. They do not hop but step and shuffle, pressed low against the surface, and in that terrain they are usually only seen when they take off. With no song posts available, the territory is marked out from the air: the male climbs while singing and then glides back down on raised wings. The nest sits in a hollow in the ground under a tussock, or in the far north deep in a rock crevice or between stones, thickly lined with feathers and hair against the cold; the short northern summer allows only one brood, raised almost entirely on insects. In winter they live on seeds on bare fields, road verges and beaches, in flocks of tens to hundreds that roll low over the ground and show white in wing and tail. The breeding plumage comes not from a moult but from wear, as the brown feather tips abrade through the winter.