THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

The real home of the snow bunting is in the arctic where it nests further north than any other land bird in the world.  Some of its homelands include countries which we always associate with cruel coldness – Alaska and Ellesmere Island, Spitsbergen and North Greenland, Siberia, Novaya Zemlaya and Franz Josef Land.  It is almost as much at home in the nunataks among the great land ice masses as it is a household bird in arctic towns, settlements and villages.

Nethersole-Thompson/Bunting, 1966

Wherever they turned, crowds of reporters gathered around them, blocking their way, asking questions, pestering them for interviews.

“Is it true you found a race of gigantic men called snow giants living on top of the glaciers?”

Nansen grinned amiably.  “No, there is absolutely no life of any consequence on the ice cap.  With the exception of a tiny snow bunting, we saw nothing.”

Denzel/Nansen, 1966

There are several vernacular names: Snow-Flake is a general term, varied dialectically to Snow-Fleck in Nidderdale.  In the North Riding it is called French Sparrow; White Lenny at Loftus and Staithes; Ower-sea Bird (over-sea-bird) at Redcar; and Over-the-sea Linnet at Kildale and Roxby.  In Arkengarthdale it is called Sleightholme Throstle; Tawny Bunting was also formerly used in Cleveland.  Mountain Bunting, used by Latham in 1822, is probably only a book name.

Nelson/Birds, 1907