Sunday, February 22, 2015

Plum Island to Southern New Hampshire

The first trip of the 2015 Spring Birding Class took place on Feb 7th and our destination was Salisbury, Plum Island and southern New Hampshire. Now the word "SPRING" is a real loose term at this moment. We were lucky to get the trip in with all the snow storms that have taken place this month. In fact, Its been years since I've seen this much snow on a birding trip to the coast...WOW!

The weather was cold, but very little wind made it a very pleasant day, even with a few light snow showers in the afternoon. We had really nice looks at the birds we encountered during the day..highlights included 3 Snowy Owls, 5 Bald Eagles, Purple Sandpipers, Thick-billed Murres, a number of waterfowl, (1) Horned Lark at the boat ramp and a very out of place Eastern Meadowlark.

Purple Sandpiper-Rye, N.H.

Snowy Owl- Rye, N.H.

Snowy Owl-Rye, N.H. - on the bath house.

Thick-billed Murre- Certainly an unexpected surprise.

Closer to home....Eastern Screech-Owl in Hatfield. (Red Morph)

E.Screech-Owl