Smith's Longspur

Smith's Longspur (Calcarius pictus) is a medium-sized, ground-dwelling songbird belonging to the longspur and snow bunting family (Calcariidae). A bird of the remote far north during the breeding season, it nests in the transition zone between the boreal forest and the arctic tundra. It is named after Gideon B. Smith, a friend of John James Audubon, though it was formerly known as the "painted lark" or "painted bunting" due to the male's richly colored breeding plumage.

While highly inconspicuous for much of the year, Smith's Longspurs are remarkable for their complex social structure during the nesting season. Unlike most songbirds, they practice polygynandry, where both males and females copulate with multiple partners, creating cooperative groups that assist in rearing a single nest of chicks.

Identifying Smith's Longspurs varies significantly by sex, age, and season, though they always maintain a few distinctive traits.

Breeding Plumage

• Male: Unmistakable with a rich, deep ochre-orange or pumpkin-buff breast, belly, and throat. The head is sharply patterned with jet-black and pristine white, featuring a black crown, a white eyebrow (supercilium), and a conspicuous white spot on the ear coverts. They feature a white shoulder patch (lesser coverts) that is highly visible when perched or in flight.
• Female: Much more cryptically colored. They are overall sandy-brown with fine, dark streaking on the breast, crown, and back, but they retain a warm buffy wash on their underparts.

Nonbreeding and Immature Plumage

In autumn and winter, both sexes resemble the breeding female. They are streaky and sandy-brown, but can be distinguished from other longspurs by their consistently warm, light-orange or buffy underparts (including the throat and belly) and a relatively plain, unstreaked face with a pale eye-ring.

Key Flight Marks

In flight, Smith's Longspur shows narrow white outer tail feathers, similar to a Vesper Sparrow or Pipit.

Similar Species

• Lapland Longspur: Lacks the overall warm buffy throat and belly in winter, showing a whiter underside and grayer face. In breeding plumage, the male Lapland has a black bib and rufous nape.
• Chestnut-collared Longspur: In flight, shows a distinct black triangle on the tail rather than narrow white borders. Breeding males have a black belly.
• Vesper Sparrow: Has a bolder white eye-ring, streakier cheeks, and lacks the warm, uniform buff color on the belly.

Smith's Longspurs migrate across a relatively narrow corridor through the center of North America.

Breeding Range and Habitat

During the summer, they breed in subarctic region of North America, stretching from Alaska across northern Canada to the Hudson Bay. Their preferred breeding habitat includes moist, grassy tussock tundra, sedge meadows, and the shrubby edges of the northern tree line.

Wintering Range and Habitat

They winter in the south-central United States, primarily in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and parts of Mississippi. In these regions, they avoid deep forest or overgrown fields, instead choosing short, dry habitats. They are frequently found in grazed pastures, stubble agricultural fields, and notably, the mowed borders of municipal airports, where they forage undetected in low turf.

Feeding

Smith's Longspurs are strictly ground foragers. They walk or run rather than hop, searching through low grass for seeds and insects. During the winter, their diet consists almost entirely of grass and weed seeds, particularly three-awn grass (Aristida). When approached, they tend to crouch low to the ground, relying on their excellent camouflage, and flush only at the last second, often rising as a flock with a sudden burst.

Flight and Vocalizations

When flushed, they fly in an undulating pattern. Their most diagnostic feature in winter is their flight call: a sharp, rapid, dry clicking rattle, frequently compared to the sound of winding a pocket watch.

On their breeding grounds, males sing a sweet, complex, musical warble from low perches, mounds, or during short aerial displays.

Breeding Ecology

Their breeding system is highly polygynandrous. A typical breeding group consists of several females and several males. Females mate hundreds of times per clutch with multiple males to ensure all eggs are fertilized and to secure the chick-rearing assistance of multiple males, who participate in feeding the young. The nest is a simple, grass-lined cup hidden on the ground beneath a tussock.