Although I saw the 1st Snowy Owl reported on the day it was found (11/25), after reading about Byron Young's 4 yesterday, plus all the good birds seen by Doug Futuyma's group, my interest was duly perked, arriving at Dune Rd., H. Bays ~ 2:45 PM today. I first checked all the locations mentioned w/o the Ponquogue Bridge, actually going as far as the "Round Dunes"/ "Dockers". The only bird of note before seeing the Snowy, was a lone Tree Swallow resting on a wire.
On the return leg east, ~ 1/4 mile e/o Tiana Beach I spotted a parked car on the beach side of the road, as well as the owl in the swale on that side. I then noticed a photographer on the wrong side of the snow fence, and advancing toward the bird. I stopped, got out of my car, and yelled to him to stop, that what he was doing was against the law. He heard me and dismissed me. I then took his license plate #, and called the police. I called out to him again, he listened to all I said, and proceeded to move closer to the bird, after telling me "there are no signs saying I can't ". While I was still on the phone, the snowy took off, heading west. The police said they were responding, and armed with the plate # and description of the idiot's SUV, they might catch up to him ! I found my FOS Snow Buntings (5) in the town beach p/lot at the foot of Ponquogue Bridge. I had a Great Cormorant feeding just w/o the commercial fishing fleet and although there were a ton of gulls resting on the exposed dredging pipe in the same area, no special gulls were seen. Walking from the Shinnicock Inlet p/lot to the west jetty, I flushed a Savannah (Ipswich) Sparrow from the beach grass.There were 5 seals and 3 D.C. Cormorants feeding in Shinnicock Inlet and just to the west ~ 65 scoters (mostly white-winged) plus the previously reported harlequin duck. The time was 4:30 PM, and dark enough, to make it difficult to make colors out. Identifying the harlequin was accomplished by the bird's overall size and head & bill size/shape (compared to the scoters along side). Cheers, Bob -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
