#0720 · 🐦 birds
Snow Bunting
🇳🇱 Sneeuwgors ·Plectrophenax nivalis
9 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences
what is it?
The snow bunting ( Plectrophenax nivalis ), sometimes colloquially called a snowflake , is a passerine bird in the family Calcariidae . It is an Arctic specialist, with a circumpolar Arctic breeding range throughout the northern hemisphere. There are small isolated populations on a few high mountain tops south of the Arctic region, including the Cairngorms in central Scotland and the Saint Elias Mountains on the southern Alaska-Yukon border, and also Cape Breton Highlands. The snow bunting is the...
base stats
Bars compare against all animals on log scales: up to 300,000 Dutch and 600,000 worldwide sightings (the most-seen species), 150 t (blue whale), 30 m and 400 years (Greenland shark).
fun facts
- Spotted 106 times in the Netherlands on iNaturalist.
- 19,520 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
- Scientifically named in 1758 (268 years ago).
fact sheet
- English
- Snow Bunting
- Nederlands
- Sneeuwgors
- scientific name
- Plectrophenax nivalis
- class
- Aves
- order
- Passeriformes
- family
- Calcariidae
- IUCN Red List
- LC · least concern
- sightings in NL
- 106
- sightings in Europe
- 5,726
- sightings worldwide
- 19,520
- GBIF records in NL
- 38,746
- weight
- —
- length
- —
- lifespan
- —
- named
- 1758
IUCN in Dutch: niet bedreigd. Blank means the sources don't say.
relatives· Calcariidae
Sources: iNaturalist taxon 117059, Wikidata Q26416, GBIF 2491719, Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (NL). Intro text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.