Finding interesting bird species is easier than ever before. I find a lot of cool birds these days because people post their locations on birding social media groups. That’s how I got to see my first Snowy Owl and Summer Tanager. We didn’t have an easy way to communicate with other birders when I first started the hobby.
That’s why I’m guessing that the rural areas outside of our city have always had Snow Buntings and Horned Larks and Lapland Longspurs in the winter—I just never knew they were here until people started sharing that information on the internet.
A few weeks ago we went back to the area where we encountered the snow squall in November. Back then we were also hoping to see the birds listed above. This time it was a nice sunny winter day and we had some success. Unfortunately we didn’t have any cameras with us, but our phones sufficed in a pinch.
We were excited to find scores of Horned Larks in the farm fields and on the side of the road on several county roads.
They are fun to watch because they never stop moving. And they are cute because they have little feathers that stick up on the sides of their heads (thus the “horned” name). Once you know what to look for, they are relatively easy to spot. They like bare agricultural fields, and during the breeding season some even breed in the Arctic tundra.
This is what it looked like where we saw them (bare corn and soybean fields):
I’ve traveled on rural roads in winter for decades, and I’ve probably passed by thousands of these birds over the years without ever knowing it. But now I know where to look!
