Last weekend, I took a ride out to a spot that's been pretty reliable for Lapland Longspurs for the past couple of winters. These arctic nesters aren't easy to find in SW Louisiana, so it's always fun when I get a chance to look at them. Luckily, I found two large flocks that added up to almost 500 birds. That might make it sound like I got good looks at them, but it wasn't quite like that at first. Often, what you see of Lapland Longspurs looks something like this:
Longspur flocks can be kind of jumpy. They have a funny habit of getting up in a swarm, flying in huge circles, coming in low to land, and then, flying back up and making the big circles all over again. However, the flocks I was watching finally landed pretty close, and I was able to study variations in plumage for as long as I wanted from about twenty or thirty yards.
Oh, by the way, when they get close, they look like this:
Longspur flocks can be kind of jumpy. They have a funny habit of getting up in a swarm, flying in huge circles, coming in low to land, and then, flying back up and making the big circles all over again. However, the flocks I was watching finally landed pretty close, and I was able to study variations in plumage for as long as I wanted from about twenty or thirty yards. 
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