 |
| East Meadows at dawn, Northampton, MA, Dec 4, 2013 |
 |
| Northern Harriers over East Meadows, Northampton, MA, Dec 4, 2013 |
 |
| Northern Harriers over East Meadows, Northampton, MA, Dec 4, 2013 |
I made a brief run through the East Meadows with the goal of
finding a Snowy Owl. Despite the area looking perfect for one to be present, I
had no luck. I did manage to find a couple Northern Harriers harassing each
other and bothering the Horned Larks spread throughout the meadows. I had at
least 370 Horned Larks as well as 21 Snow Buntings but I think these numbers are
a major under count as they seemed to be everywhere.
 |
| Bald Eagles, Winsor Dam, Quabbin Park, Dec 4, 2013 |
 |
| Bald Eagles, Winsor Dam, Quabbin Park, Dec 4, 2013 |
Late in the day I saw a post about a Snowy Owl finally showing up here in western mass when one was seen and photographed in Hatfield. It was too late in the day to make my way back over that way and still have enough light to have any chance of finding the bird. Hopefully it will stick around and perhaps be joined by others. Scott S. also got a second hand report of a Snowy Owl at Westover ARB right at the end of November. I will try tomorrow and hope my Snowy Owl search produces results faster than that (expletive deleted) Gyrfalcon quest of last winter! To say it took a lot of looking last year to finally find that bird would be a major understatement!
A little background on what is looking to be a major influx of Snowy Owl into the Great Lakes and the northeast (and now mid Atlantic) can be found at the following links:
eBirds take on the influx:
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/gotsnowies2013/
eBirds link to the latest map of Snowy Owl reports:
http://ebird.org/ebird/map/snoowl1?neg=true&env.minX=&env.minY=&env.maxX=&env.maxY=&zh=false&gp=false&ev=Z&mr=on&bmo=11&emo=12&yr=cur
More mid Atlantic focused but still interesting:
http://www.nemesisbird
No comments:
Post a Comment