Snow Bunting

by Elaine Caton, Blackfoot Challenge Bird Program Coordinator

The Blackfoot in winter is generally a quiet place, not just in levels of sound but also activity. Many animals have migrated or gone into hibernation, people aren’t out and about as much, there are no insects humming or birds singing, and even most of the plants are dormant! Along with the short days and long nights, the quiet can make the land seem empty and lifeless. 

And yet, the quiet and stillness are often broken by the activity of the hardy birds that are here on even the coldest and snowiest days. More than 100 different bird species may be found in the Blackfoot in the winter months. Some, like black-capped and mountain chickadees, are busy searching for food among the tree branches, calling as they flit from tree to tree. Along with small birds like brown creepers and nuthatches, they usually travel in “mixed species flocks” in winter, which helps them keep watch for predators. These are some of the most likely birds to visit your feeder in winter if you have trees around your house, and I know they brighten my winter days immensely.  

These tiny birds (chickadees weigh half of an ounce at most) need to eat frequently and a lot in winter to survive—up to 10% of their body weight each winter day. Although they mostly feed on insects the rest of the year, in winter their diet is about half seeds and berries and half invertebrates like crawling insects and spiders. They will also eat fat and bits of meat from carcasses! If you really want to make a chickadee happy, put out some dried mealworms with the sunflower seeds. 

Almost all the nine woodpecker species in the Blackfoot stay around all year, although the sapsuckers and Lewis’s woodpeckers move to warmer, lower elevation valleys. Along with the chickadees and nuthatches, woodpeckers are cavity nesters, and all these birds will roost on cold winter nights in old nest cavities, which afford both warmth and protection from predators. Some of the cavity nesters occasionally pack themselves in groups into a single hole when temperatures dip especially low. One ornithologist counted 167 tiny pygmy nuthatches piling into an old woodpecker nest hole in a ponderosa pine one evening! Chickadees usually roost alone but can lower their body temperature by up to 20 degrees F at night to conserve energy, entering a state of controlled hypothermia to reduce the chances of starving before morning arrives.

Most raptors like hawks and owls also generally stick around in the winter. In fact, northern pygmy owls visit feeders in the winter too, but they aren’t looking for sunflower seeds. These wee predators will go after the songbirds attracted to feeders, and they and other owls will also hunt rodents that might be looking for spilled seeds. If you hear a group of small birds making a big racket in the winter, look around—there is a good chance they are harassing a small owl or hawk and letting them know their cover is blown!

Other raptors, like rough-legged hawks, sit silently for hours on fenceposts and electric poles, waiting patiently for a small animal to leave its cover in a careless moment. Rough-legged hawks are in a special category of birds that actually migrate to Montana in the winter. Along with a handful of other species that include Bohemian waxwings, northern shrikes, redpolls, and snow buntings, they breed farther north and head to their winter homes in Montana where the living is easier. Rare winter visitors to the Blackfoot are snowy owls and gyrfalcons.

Some of my favorite winter sightings are of the occasional flocks of snow buntings I see along the edges of the roads. These beautiful little white and black birds nest in rock crevices in the high arctic and are somewhat nomadic in winter, spending time foraging for seeds on patches of bare ground. The flashes of white as a flock rises from the shoulder of the highway are a reminder of the special connections our birds have to other parts of the world.

There is no doubt about it, you must be tough to live in the Blackfoot in winter, humans included! When I am doing my best to stay warm in the winter cold with all my layers and hats and gloves, I am always in awe of these much smaller feathered beings that manage to find food and keep their tiny engines running in the frigid weather.

The All About Birds website at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a great resource to learn more about all our bird species, as well as their outstanding Merlin Bird App. Project Feederwatch is a fun citizen science program that allows you to count and record the birds you see from the comfort of your own kitchen table and contributes to knowledge important to their conservation. And the worldwide Great Backyard Bird Count, which takes place February 14–17, requires as little as 15 minutes of watching and recording birds.

Have an interesting bird observation of your own to share or a question about birds in the Blackfoot watershed?  We’d love to hear about it. You can reach me at elaine@blackfootchallenge.org.