The bewitching birds nest only here, in one of the most inaccessible places on the planet.
A female McKay’s bunting with berry-stained feathers poses post-meal. She lives on the secluded island of St. Matthew with all the members of her species. This article appeared in the March/April 2021 issue ofSt. Matthew Island sits alone in the frigid emptiness of the Bering Sea, like a great, gnarled stone thrown far from Alaska’s western coast.
Named after naturalist Charles McKay, who first collected specimens of the bird, these buntings are so evocative of winter flurries that, for years, they were known as “McKay’s snowflakes.” The island wilderness is so isolated that two decades passed between expeditions to the McKay’s buntings’ breeding grounds. In the early 1980s, researchers visited St. Matthew to learn about the birds’ nesting habits. Then, in 2003, another group of scientists returned to estimate the birds’ numbers. Results from these surveys suggested that there may be more than 30,000 McKay’s buntings — 10 times more than previously estimated, according to Matsuoka.
The tiny rodents pierced the air with alarm calls so frequently that it “almost feels like you have tinnitus walking around the island,” says Matsuoka. Along with Arctic foxes and singing voles, red foxes are among the only land-dwelling mammals on the island. Beyond the headcount, more data was waiting beneath the team’s boots — in tiny nests filling crevices between the massive boulders. McKay’s buntings make excellent use of their austere surroundings, turning a forbidding tract of boulders into a nursery. To take a peek at these well-hidden sanctuaries without damaging them, Richardson and her colleagues got creative.
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