Fróðskaparrit - 31.12.2000, Page 28

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THE SNOW BUNTING (PLECTROPHENAX NIVIALIS) AS FOOD
manland, famine is to be expected, if there
are large flocks of snow buntings (Modin,
1916: 325). The Sami too connect the ap-
pearance of this bird in inhabited areas with
forthcoming snow or bad weather (Fell-
man, 1906: 92; Turi, 1917: 109-110; Qvig-
stad, 1934:380). A record from Østerdalen
in Norway says the weather will be bad, if
the uværsfuglen arrives in spring. The be-
lief in Senja had it that there would be
snow, if the plumage of the snow bunting
was white, but bad weather if it was dark
(Hodne, 1998: 122). According to Danish
folk belief in Jutland, more winter was to
be expected, if the snákákken tarried too
long in the spring (DFS, 1904/26). A re-
cord from Skive says there will be snow, if
the snekok appears and comes to the hous-
es (Schmidt, 1963: 225-226). It is a herald
of spring, according to Estonian folk belief
(Mager, 1994: 111-112). The snow bun-
ting’s habit of gathering in large flocks of
white males also earned it poetic names,
such as snowflake in Scotland and the
Orkney Isles (Swainson, 1886: 72; cf. also
Chapman, 1896). In western Greenland,
the arrival of the kupaluarsuk - of which
the children were keenly observant - an-
nounced the end of winter (Le Mouel,
1973: 72). When the time for the arrival of
this bird approached, the people of Green-
land searched for it eagerly, and upon espy-
ing it, welcomed it enthusiastically as a
sign of the forthcoming spring (Freuchen
and Salomonsen, 1958: 117-118).
The snow bunting has a northern circum-
polar distribution. It is found in Alaska,
Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Jan Mayen,
Svalbard, Bjørnøya, Franz Josef Land,
northern Scotland, Finno-Scandia, Russia,
Siberia, Kamchatka, and the Aleut Islands.
It is found as a breeding bird in the area of
Finno-Scandia north of the tree line, and it
is also a common breeding bird in Iceland.
It was formerly a breeding bird in the
Faroes, but there is no record of it breeding
there at any point over the last hundred
years. The scientific community has known
of the snow bunting since the late 17th cen-
tury, when Olof Rudbeck, the Younger, de-
scribed the species during his Lapland tour
(Rudbeck, 1987). Carl Linnaeus gave a full
account of the species in 1740 (Fig. 1).
The Snow Bunting as Food
As Svabo explicitly stated, the few small-
bird species in the Faroe Islands were usu-
ally not eaten. Of the wheatear (Oenanthe
oenanthe), he wrote that the Islanders ate
“neither the bird, its egg nor the nestling”.
The wren (Troglodytes troglodytes) was not
eaten either, he explained. Although Svabo
devoted a whole chapter to the detailed de-
scription of the methods for trapping and
hunting birds in the mountains, he gave no
further information on the capture of the
snow bunting. Details cannot be found in
the available ethnographic information. It
furthermore bears recalling in this connec-
tion that the starling (Sturnus vulgaris), ac-
cording to a more recent record, was caught
during times of food shortage in the early
years of the last century (Olsen, 1998: 6).
The snow bunting is a ground-loving
bird: hence, it is sometimes regarded in
Nordic folk taxonomy as a lark. During its
migration, it appears in large flocks and al-
ways in open meadows. It has been hunted