It's time for my weekly weekend birding notes. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Saturday was a bit of a bust. We stopped at the famous Mt. Auburn Cemetery (which is beautiful, birds or no) in hopes of finding some photogenic sapsuckers or screech owl that has been seen periodically. Dipped on both. Fail.
Sunday morning Pamela and I headed to Plum Island. Yes, yes, I know - if you read this blog with any regularity, that's somewhat predictable. But there is always something good to see.
On this occassion, it happened to be White-winged Crossbills. It seems like this is going to be a good irruption year for these beautiful finches - reports of small flocks of them have been lighting-up the list-servs all over New England. It took a little patience, but we did locate a flock of about 12-15 birds. (About 5 minutes after a Merlin tore through the area, the birds piped up a bit). Not quite the pics I had hoped for, but with the high winds, they spent very little time on the outer fringes of branches:
We did spend a little time checking for Snowy Owls, but I believe the winds drove them toward the shelter of the dunes. They are certainly still around (they continue to be reported today). While at the south end of the island there were some of the usual suspects - Snow Buntings and Horned Larks.
And I always try, but I have yet to get a photo that I am happy with of a Northern Harrier. I see them pretty much every time we go to PI, and they do come very close,but I never seem to have the camera ready. Sunday I got my best photo so far- and still am not happy with it. Someday...
