Four Images of the Snow Bunting landing strip.

As I mentioned in yesterday's postings, the Large flock of Snow Buntings came to feast on an open pile of Cattle feed. This pile was located at the foot of a horizontal silo in which the feed (silage) was covered by a tarp and a layer of snow. The Buntings would always use the top of this silage as a landing strip or runway and then en mass run down the front sloping part towards open end of the silo near which the pile of open feed was located. This was actually quite funny to see. More often than not, only a few birds made it to the feed before something set off the whole flock which would cause them all to fly off and return a few minutes later to repeat the exercise.

The top image shows a small group of the Buntings at the top (crown) of the silo. Note all the small dark flecks are not feed, but rather bird droppings.


Side view of one of the Buntings on top of the silage.


Front view of one of the Buntings on top of the silage.


An other side view.