| The breeding male Smith's Longspur head has white stripes above the eye and on the crown and a white patch on the sides of the neck and a short conical bill. They are streaked with brown above and are buff below appearing more yellowish than the picture to your left. The outer flight feathers are white and their white wingpatches are more visible during flight. Females as well as males during the winter are much duller and lack the striped head pattern. Even during winter the Smith's Longspur remains buffer than other Longspurs and aids in separating the species. Like other Longspurs this species has the long posterior claw that gives this family its name. The voice is a clinking sound that has been compared to a finger running down the teeth of a plastic comb.
The breeding ground is further north than almost any of our migratory birds. The habitat consist of the dry, hummocky areas of the Arctic tundra sometimes near the forest's edge from the northern coast of Alaska to the Hudson Bay. During the winter from about September to April this bird prefers the open grasslands of the central United States from Nebraska to northern Texas.
The clutch consists of 3 to 5 grayish eggs, spotted with darker brown. The eggs are placed in a hollow hummock on the ground lined with grass, feathers, hair and fine plant materials usually concealed under a clump of vegetation. The eggs are incubated by the female for about 11 or 12 days. When the nest is threatened the they perform a distraction display, with tail fanned and dragging the ground, it droops and flutters its wings as it runs from the nest.
It forages along the ground and the diet consists mainly of grass, forbs, and sedge seeds and smaller numbers of insects. During the winter they will usually fly only when disturbed and then making short flights before landing again in the short grass. They sometimes gather in flocks mixed with other Longspurs as well as Larks and Sparrows.
Length: 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 inches.
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