In addition to consulting numerous local, national, and international field
guides, I made heavy use of the following in making my identifications of
the buntings:

Byers, C., Curson, J., and U. Olsson. 1995. Sparrows and buntings: A guide
to the sparrows and buntings of North America and the world. Houghton
Mifflin, Boston, MA.

Lyon, B., and R. Montgomerie. 1995. Snow Bunting and McKay's Bunting
(Plectrophenax nivalis and Plectrophenax hyperboreus). In The Birds of North
America, No. 198-199 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). Philadelphia: The Academy
of Natural Sciences; Washington, DC: The American Ornithologists' Union.

Rising, J. D. and D. D. Beadle. 1996. A guide to the identification and
natural history of the sparrows of the United States and Canada. Academic
Press, San Diego, CA.

As for my field experience, the Snow Buntings I've seen in my life possibly
number in the tens of thousands, though--as you might imagine--not all of
these were examined at close range. I've also worked full-time banding
passerines.

A number of the aforementioned references cite Pyle, so I haven't bothered
tracking down a copy of it. I seem to recall that Rising and Beadle (1996)
include a tail diagram that shows extensive dark in the tail of first-year
female McKay's Bunting, so the amount of dark in Rectrix 3 may not be
diagnostic.

As for a size difference between Snow and McKay's, I'm not aware of any
significant enough to be discernable in the field.

Regards,
Jason Rogers
Banff, AB
hawkowl at hotmail.com


>From: Dennis Paulson <nettasmith at comcast.net>
>To: hawkowl at hotmail.com
>CC: tweeters at u.washington.edu, Dennis Paulson <dpaulson at ups.edu>
>Subject: bunting ID
>Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 21:20:13 -0800
>
>Hi, Jason.
>
>I apologize for my misstatement that I never thought the Harrison Hot
>Springs bunting was a male. I guess I did back when I posted those photos,
>and soon after that with more deliberation I decided I really couldn't be
>sure of the sex. I had completely forgotten that I called the bird a male
>at first, and I plan to delete that from the web page. It seemed to me
>that you have to be sure of the sex to be able to compare the characters
>distinguishing the two species, just as you should know the plumage when
>you try to identify a stint, and I was left uncertain of the sex as well as
>the species.
>
>Did you use the second edition of Pyle's handbook of passerine
>identification in your determinations? I worked and worked with it and
>couldn't satisfy myself that our bird was definitely a McKay's. As it's so
>pale, I felt certain it wasn't a typical Snow Bunting, so I was satisfied
>with Dan Gibson's and Kevin Winker's determinations. Dan has been all over
>Alaska for many years, and I wouldn't be surprised if he collected a fair
>number of the buntings that are in the U of Alaska Museum. That of course
>doesn't make his opinion sacrosanct, but I think it does give it some
>weight. Indeed he may not have looked at as many references as you have,
>but I do agree with Wayne that experience is the very best teacher..
>
>I'll look again at my photos and Pyle's comments on both sex and species.
>We also have a series of Snow Buntings in the Slater Museum, so I can use
>them as references testing Pyle's statements about distinguishing the sexes
>(he's not sacrosanct either!), but of course there are age differences as
>well. Thus it seems we are talking about EIGHT different plumages to
>distinguish (2x2x2).
>
>Dennis
>-----
>Dennis Paulson & Netta Smith
>1724 NE 98 St.
>Seattle, WA 98115
>206-528-1382
>