Photo: Dean Hester

"Male Chestnut-collared Longspurs can be found in summer singing their flight-songs over the northern prairies. In winter, flocks invade the grasslands of the Southwest. They can be hard to see well on the ground, flushing when a birder approaches, to swirl away over the fields with soft musical callnotes; they are more easily observed when they come to drink at ponds."

Photo: Gregory "Slobirdr" Smith

"Found throughout the Arctic zones of Europe, Asia, and North America in summer, this is one of the most abundant breeding birds of the far North. Birders who visit the tundra in summer will find Lapland Longspurs very common almost everywhere there, the bright males singing their short warbling songs from hummocks or rocks or while flying. In winter the birds come south in flocks, to forage in windswept fields. Although they range widely across the continent, the vast majority winter on the Great Plains, where flocks in the thousands seem to reflect the abundance of the species on its northern nesting grounds."