Jacob Davies

The breeding habitats of the species include treeless rocky areas (for nesting) or vegetated tundra (for feeding), often close to snow. Outside the breeding season it occurs on open fields, shingle beaches, sand dunes.

The species shows typical circumpolar distribution across the tundra zone. In Europe, it inhabits mountain and coastal tundra in Fennoscandia and Russia (incl. arctic islands), Iceland, and Scotland (Montgomerie, Lyon 2020).

Intra-European migrant. Most populations are migratory, the wintering sites are mostly in the temperate zone.

Its population trend in Europe is unknown. Evaluated as “Least Concern” (BirdLife International 2021).

Season of assessment

B

Population trendUnknown
Population size
(min-max, best estimate)		2510000-4940000,3480000
Red List categoryLC
Franks, S., Fiedler, W., Arizaga, J., Jiguet, F., Nikolov, B., van der Jeugd, Ambrosini, R, Aizpurua, O., Bairlein, F., Clark, J., Fattorini, N, Hammond, M., Higgins, D, Levering, H., Skellorn, W., Spina, F, Thorup, K. Walker, J., Woodward, I. and Baillie, S.R. (1) (2022) Online Atlas of the movements of European bird populations. https://migrationatlas.org EURING/CMS (1) Principal investigator
Map

Overall Connectivity for Snow Bunting

Svalbard population migrates through NW Russia and N Fennoscandia. Birds breeding in arctic Norway are encountered wintering in SW Russia. Icelandic population is partially migratory, some birds take SE routes to overwinter in Scotland and W Europe, even S Scandinavia.

Small Scottish breeding population is thought to be resident and/ or locally dispersive (Wernham et al. 2002). An exchange of birds during winter between Britain and coastal W Europe (mostly the Low Countries) has been recorded; some birds marked in UK have been encountered wintering as far as Italy and N Germany.

The majority of the population in Greenland is migratory. Birds breeding in high-arctic NE Greenland migrate via N Norway to winter in Russia. A small proportion of the E Greenland birds also winters regularly in Iceland and W Europe (Lyngs 2003).

Recoveries by Condition for Snow Bunting

Protected species in Europe. NW & N Europe hold the bulk of encounters (ca. 56 and 21% respectively). The dataset has largely been populated after mid-1990s. The encounters mainly come from outside breeding season (Nov-Apr) – ca. 95%.

The encounters based on dead birds (mostly sick/ wounded or other than shot/ intentionally taken recovery condition categories) decreased markedly over the years – from 70% pre-1960 to just 1% after 1991. Inversely, the share of recoveries based on alive birds largely increased – from 30 to 99% respectively, the latter mostly due to ringing encounters. The proportion of colour marking records stays comparatively stable since 1961– about 5-6%.

Annual Movements for Snow Bunting

On British Isles, migrating birds (mostly from Iceland and Greenland) appear as early as Oct, mostly in Nov. A bird marked in mid-Sep at Heligoland Is. (North Sea) was encountered a month later (mid-Oct) wintering in Italy.

Most wintering birds in the temperate zone of Europe are encountered between Nov and Feb. Return movements in spring result in arrival at the breeding grounds as early as Mar in low Arctic and Apr-May in high Arctic.

Migratory birds from the Greenland population generally leave in Sep-Oct and return from late Mar to May, males being 2-4 weeks earlier than females (Lyngs 2003).

Population breeding on Svalbard Is generally follows a clock-wise loop migration to its wintering grounds in W Siberia, although considerable variation in routes during the non-breeding period has been recorded (Snell et al. 2018).

Connectivity by Month by Region for Snow Bunting

In general, females appear to migrate south earlier and farther than males (Montgomerie, Lyon 2020). Males predominate in the wintering populations to the N, while wintering birds in W Europe are mainly females. About 80% of the birds encountered in Scotland during winter have been of Icelandic origin (Banks et al. 1991).

Breeding sites are usually left early- to mid-autumn. Birds wintering in W, S & E Europe are encountered from early autumn but mainly from late autumn to late winter. The breeding sites are reached early- to late spring, depending to latitude. However, at any site the arrivals in spring could span for more than a month (Montgomerie, Lyon 2020).

Most ringing data during winter come from the coastal areas of North Sea region. There are very few encounters of birds wintering in C, SE & E Europe.

Boris Nikolov

References

Statistics Map
N records N individuals N recoveries
Mapped data*
Total available data
*Mapped data include only distant (>= 50 km) recoveries
References Map
2002 . The Migration Atlas: movements of the birds of Britain and Ireland. T. & A.D. Poyser, LondonEditor(s): Wernham, C.V., Toms, M.P., Marchant, J.H., Clark, J.A., Siriwardena, G.M., Baillie, S.R.
Banks, K. W., Clark, H., Mackay, I. R. K., Mackay, S. G., Sellers, R. M. 1991 . Origins, population structure and movements of Snow Buntings Plectrophenax nivalis wintering in Highland Region, Scotland. Bird Study 38: 10–19
BirdLife International 2021 . Species factsheet: Plectrophenax nivalis. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 15/08/2021.
Lyngs, P. 2003 . Migration and winter ranges of birds in Greenland. An analysis of ringing recoveries. Danish Ornithological Society/BirdLife Denmark, Copenhagen
Montgomerie, R. and B. Lyon 2020 . Snow Bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis), version 1.0. In Birds of the World Link to Article (DOI: https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.snobun.01) Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA
Snell, K.R.S., Stokke, B.G., Moksnes. A., Thorup. K. and Fossøy, F. 2018 . From Svalbard to Siberia: passerines breeding in the high arctic also endure the extreme cold of the western steppe. PLoS ONE 13

Back to Analysis