Well, I started this blog almost one year ago, and have posted ONCE to it. Yep, just once - the initial entry to get it going. I've visited it a few times during the year to see if it was still around and toyed with the idea of posting something new.
I am now going to try again in earnest to be a little more regular, and mayble I'll even let a few other people know about it...
On Sunday, Pamela and I went to Plum Island to see if we could find any of the Snowy Owls that have finally showed up (a lot later this year) and not only did we find three different individuals, but had some of the best & closest looks yet. AND NOW, for something completely new to me - I'm going to try to include a photo...
*more photos posted in the "owls" gallery at my pBase page
The photo was taken with a Sony DSC-H7. It's a great camera - 8.1 megapixel, vibration reduction, 15x optical zoom (approximately 465mm) and Pamela got me a 1.7 teleconverter for Chirstmas, so it is almost the equivalent of an 800mm lens on a point-and-shoot camera! It's an nice alternative to the digiscoping set-up in some situations - it doesn't have nearly the magnification that digiscoping does, but it's handy in situations where the scope would be too cumbersome to carry, or if the bird is just too darn close. Also, since I don't use any mounting adaptors when digiscoping (just hend-held) I very rarely get any pics of birds in flight. This camera will allow a little more opportunity for that.
Other highlight birds for the day included Common Redpolls, a light-morph Rough-legged Hawk, Northern Shrike, a male Norther Harrier and another female harrier that spent some time just sitting on the ground giving very nice extended looks at the facial disk. Although harriers are common enough on the refuge, I still enjoy seeing them - something about the way they effortlessly glide along.
