Smith's Longspur

Smith's Longspur, breeding male; Churchill, Manitoba; June

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1. Cool Facts
2. Description
3. Similar Species
4. Sound
5. Range
6. Habitat
7. Food
8. Reproduction
9. Conservation Status
10. Other Names

A brightly patterned songbird of the subarctic tundra, the Smith's Longspur winters only in the center of the United States.

Cool Facts

• The Smith?s Longspur is polygynandrous: each female pairs and copulates with two or three males for a single clutch of eggs, at the same time that each male pairs and copulates with two or more females.
• Male Smith's Longspurs are not territorial, but instead compete for fertilizations by copulating with females frequently in order to dilute or displace sperm from other males.

• Over a period of one week in June, a female Smith's Longspur will copulate over 350 times on average; this is one of the highest copulation rates of any bird.

• ?Longspur? refers to the elongated claw of the hind toe.

Description

• Size: 15-17 cm (6-7 in)
• Weight: 20-32 g (0.71-1.13 ounces)

• Medium-sized sparrow-like bird.
• Short, thick, pointed bill.
• Long tail with white outer feathers.
• Whitish wingbars.
• Breeding male with orangish neck, chest, and belly, and black-and-white patterned face.
• Female and winter male with dull, buffy belly and small white eyering.

Sex Differences

Breeding male strikingly marked with black-and-white face and orangish tan underside, female and winter male dull buffy with only a hint of face pattern.

Immature

Similar to female.

Similar Species

• Horned Lark has thin bill, black face patch, black tail with white outer tail feathers.
• Pipits have thin bills.
• Chestnut-collared Longspur has black triangle on white tail; breeding male has black chest and belly and rufous nape.
• Lapland Longspur has little white on outer edge of tail, and rufous in the wings.
• McCown's Longspur has black T on white tail (tip and center black); breeding male has small black chest patch and gray belly.

Sound

Song a high sweet warble. Flight note a dry rattle.

Range

Range Map

© 2004 Cornell Lab of Ornithology

About the map

Summer Range

Breeds in Alaska and very northern Canada.

Winter Range

Winters in the central United States from Iowa to northern Texas.

Habitat

Breeds on dry, grassy, and hummocky tundra. Winters in fields with short grass, prairies, and grassy margins of airports.

Food

Seeds and insects.

Reproduction

Clutch Size

Condition at Hatching

Helpless.

Conservation Status

Total population unknown and no long-term data available to determine trends in populations.

Other Names

Bruant de Smith (French)

Sources used to construct this page:

Briskie, J. V. 1993. Smith?s Longspur (Calcarius pictus). In The Birds of North America, No. 34 (A. Poole, P. Stettenheim, and F. Gill, Eds.). Philadelphia: The Academy of Natural Sciences; Washington, DC: The American Ornithologists? Union.