Photo: Snow buntings return to their summer breeding grounds

One of the Arctic’s treasured songbirds, the snow bunting, returns to its summer home in Sanikiluaq April 18. Snow buntings, which winter in southern Canada and the northern United States, usually migrate north to breed in April and May; the males return first, when snow still covers the ground, to stake out and defend good nesting sites. When the females return a month or so later, they pair up and make nests in deep cracks and cavities in rocks, according the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds website. Females then remain at the nest for most of her offspring’s incubation. The breeding males keep their mates alive on the nest by bringing them food. (PHOTO BY SARAH MEEKO)