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This will likely be the first of a few posts about this past weekend when Patrick, Corey, Quintus, and Nate, traveled up here to cold eastern MA to meet a few fellow bloggers, make new friends, bird like crazy, and compete in the 6th annual Superbowl of Birding. (oh, and freeze their you-know-whats off!)
For me, the weekend started last Thursday, when I took the day off from work to do a full 'dry run' of our route. I was out of the house at 4:30am to be on location for the 5am start time, and spent the following 12 hours following the route I had been considering for our team. It was a long day of birding by myself in the cold - forcing myslef to stay out when I normally would have run for cover. I did ok for the day, but knew that with additional four pairs of sharp eyes of my team, and some adjustments to the plan, we would be a force to be reckoned with.
Friday was when the real fun began. Patrick was the driver for the first leg of the trip. Quintus joined Patrick in their home state of New Jersey bright and early, and soon after had picked up Corey, and they all continued north, stopping in Providence, RI to pick up Nate who flew up here to compete with us. These guys were dedicated - which is exactly the type of metal you need if you're planning on competing for 12 hours in bitter cold and wind. They arrived in town at about 1:30pm, and after introducing ourselves, checking into the hotel suite we booked, and picking up the rental car, we were cruising up Route 93 to Center Harbor in New Hampshire (about a 2 hour drive) so that we could lay our eyes on the first "good" bird of the trip - a Northern Hawk Owl that has been reliably seen there. (Just in case you missed that, let me just review - these guys drove and flew for hours to get here, and within minutes of arriving, were ready and even anxious, to jump back into a car and drive another few hours to go birding) I think Quintus said it best - we all "got along like a house on fire" and were chatting, laughing, and talking birds the entire way. When we finally pulled up to the Hawk Owl spot, the bird was quickly spotted in the distance (and honestly, I can't remember which of these guys spotted it first).
See that little dot at the top of the tree in the center? Yep, that's him. A little further away than the first time I saw him, but really it didn't matter. We had plenty of optics at our disposal. We jumped out of the van like a crack swat team and in no time at all, we were enjoying views like:
I know it's not in focus, but I really like that shot of him taking off. While we watched, he did a couple of sorties out across the field, but never had a successful hunt while we watched, and one time he even flew within about 25 feet of us as he changed lookout spots for a few minutes. As all this was happening, Quintus was mo-blogging and even posted a phone-scoped pic of the owl to his blog, while Nate Twittered about it.
I think the guys were all pretty happy with the looks we got. What do you think?
Here we have (l. to r.) Quintus, Corey, Nathan, and Patrick. (oh yeah, and the owl above them)We did walk around a bit to see if we could turn up any other boreal species that might be around, but it was getting a bit late, and things were otherwise pretty quiet. Along the way, we chatted with a few very nice ladies who were very interested in seeing the owl and about the competition that we were about to participate in. Finally, we packed it in, and started heading back to the hotel so that everyone could get some much required rest before tomorow's big day (but not before stopping for some pizza and beer first - we had to celebrate the Hawk Owl somehow!)
Coming up next... competition day! Stay tuned!
In the meantime, be sure to check out the blogs of the rest of the Bloggerhead Kingbirds:
Patrick at the Hawk Owl's Nest
Corey at 10,000 Birds
Quintus at the Owl Box Blog
Nathan at The Drinking Bird
