Tuesday, June 3, 2014

A brief cinema of Snow Buntings

The blizzards, cold temperatures, and heavy snow cover that defined last winter in Ohio are but a distant memory. Today's temperatures hit the mid 80's, and spring migration has subsided. The shift to warm weather and all that it brings feels good, but last winter certainly left some positive memories.

A highlight of the polar vortex winter of 2013/14 was the astonishing spectacle of thousands of Snow Buntings at Mike and Becky Jordan's Delaware County residence. The buntings were attended by good numbers of Horned Larks and Lapland Longspurs, and the overall effect was of a tsunami of birds blowing over the snowy fields. I wrote about this several places, including RIGHT HERE.

The Jordans were very gracious to the scores of birders who came from far and wide. They put out several thousand pounds of cracked corn to keep their feathered charges happy, too. The scene was a definite highlight of winter birding.

On one of my visits, I brought along my GoPro camera, and used it to shoot some video footage. Tim Daniel, photographer for the Ohio Division of Wildlife, also made some excellent video with his GoPro. Our colleague and videographer extraordinaire Skip Trask was kind enough to take the best of the videos and splice them together into a short, artfully executed piece. It follows, and I hope that you enjoy a short reminisce of last winter's amazing bunting spectacle.

Video by Tim Daniel and Jim McCormac - editing by Skip Trask

2 comments:

TheDon said...


That is the best video I've seen on the Internet. Even my cat Tyler watched every moment of it rapt--I'm just surprised he didn't strike the screen! Thanks!!

Don

Zach said...

This year was great for Snow buntings. I live in farm country and feed the birds when snow or ice cover their food sources. This year I had dozens of Horned larks, Lapland longspurs, and Snow buntings in the backyard. I always enjoy the scarce chances to draw in Snow buntings over the winter months as I see few of them in the Brookville area.