Snow Bunting

 Third time lucky!  I first saw Snow Buntings on the Southern Shore of Newfoundland last December. There were many flying around very fast on a terribly cold, snowy and blustery day. I am about to delete all of the blurry shots taken that day.

Last week I came upon about ten Snow Buntings at Cape Spear, the most northeasterly point of North America. They were far and very skittish. I took pictures that were better than last years but still not OK. Then, yesterday morning, with the sun shining and with moderate winds, I decided to return to Cape Spear for another look. I was pleasantly surprised by three Snow Buntings that chose to walk the trail with me. They provided great opportunity for much better shots. Look closely, this one is an action shot.

 The Snow Bunting is an Arctic bird and can survive extremely low temperatures as low as fifty degrees Celsius below zero.  These birds have already developed their Winter plumage and are very handsome.  

They eat seeds, insects, caterpillars and small crustaceans and mollusks. On this day, these three birds were particularly tame and stopped to eat while I looked on.