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Lapland Longspur

February 03, 2025  •  Leave a Comment

I happened upon a small flock of Lapland Longspurs, about 12 or so. These little denizens of the flat lands are some hardy braving the -13C to -18C temperatures plus another -10C in wind chill.

I last saw Lapland Longspurs on the barrens leading to Pennant Point in Crystal Crescent Provincial Park but only in ones never a flock like this bunch on February 1.

I have visited their breeding grounds on the fields behind Cape St. Mary's, Newfoundland. They bunch together with Horned Larks.

Lapland Longspur

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Lapland longspur

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Lapland longspur
Male
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Calcariidae
Genus: Calcarius
Species:
C. lapponicus
Binomial name
Calcarius lapponicus
(Linnaeus, 1758)
Range
  Breeding
  Migration
  Nonbreeding
Synonyms

Fringilla lapponica Linnaeus, 1758

Calcarius lapponicus

The Lapland longspur (Calcarius lapponicus), also known as the Lapland bunting, is a passerine bird in the longspur family Calcariidae, a group separated by most modern authors from the Fringillidae (Old World finches).

Taxonomy

The Lapland longspur was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He placed it with the finches in the genus Fringilla and coined the binomial name Fringilla lapponica.[2][3] The Lapland longspur is now one of three longspurs placed in the genus Calcarius that was introduced in 1802 by the German naturalist Johann Matthäus Bechstein.[4] The English name refers to the long hind claws.[5] The genus name Calcarius is from Latin calcaria, "spurs", and the specific lapponicus refers to Lapland.[6]

Five subspecies are recognised:[4]

  • C. l. subcalcaratus (Brehm, CL, 1826) – north Canada and Greenland
  • C. l. lapponicus (Linnaeus, 1758) – north Europe and north Asia
  • C. l. kamtschaticus Portenko, 1937 – northeast Siberia
  • C. l. alascensis Ridgway, 1898 – extreme east Siberia, Alaska and northwest Canada
  • C. l. coloratus Ridgway, 1898 – Commander Islands

Description

The Lapland longspur is a robust bird, with a thick yellow seed-eater's bill. The summer male has a black head and throat, white eyestripe, chestnut nape, white underparts, and a heavily streaked black-grey back. Other plumages have a plainer orange-brown head, a browner back and chestnut nape and wing panels.

Measurements:[7]

  • Length: 5.9–6.3 in (15–16 cm)
  • Weight: 0.8–1.2 oz (22.3–33.1 g)
  • Wingspan: 8.7–11.4 in (22–29 cm)

Distribution and habitat

It breeds across Arctic Europe and the Palearctic and in Canada and the northernmost United States. It is migratory, wintering in the Russian steppes, the southern United States, Northern Scandinavian arctic areas and down to coastal Southern Sweden, Denmark and Great Britain. This is the only Asian species of the longspur buntings, and while it probably did not evolve there, it has been present in Eastern Europe for at least about 30,000 years.[8]

 


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