Holgate 1/25--Snowy Owl

Digiscope

I made my semi-annual schlep to Holgate this morning. I had a few target birds in mind, foremost the Eared Grebe that has been sighted there the last couple of days. If that was the only bird of potential interest there I wouldn't have bothered to make the drive because I think that looking for a small bird in the vast ocean is a low percentage play. And I was right on that count, since I didn't see that species. I was, I later found out, looking in the wrong vastness. I concentrated my search on the 1/2 mile south of the parking lot, where it had been seen, but today, because birds have wings and, in this case, can also swim, the grebe was seen north of the parking lot. 

First sighting

However, in the winter, if you walk far enough on Holgate, you will eventually come across a Snowy Owl. Today it took 1.4 miles before one, sitting on a Forsythe boundary sign, popped into my binocular view. I took one photo before it took off and I figured that was it, but a quick, shrug your shoulders scan, turned it up on a nearby dune. So, I was able to take the best digiscope photo I've ever made and didn't have any guilt about getting too close to the bird. 

I like Holgate on a weekday when the photographers are thin on the ground but there were a couple there. One came up behind me as I was walking away, and I saw him taking pictures from a decent distance. However, when I said I'd gotten a good digiscope of the owl it turned out that he was unaware of it--what he was shooting I don't know, but one he saw the bird he decided to stay and wait for it to fly. Good luck with that. My experience is that they don't fly unless there's food to be had. Why an owl in flight is so coveted is an enduring mystery to me. I'd rather admire it stationery. 

Another photographer came up to me as I was heading back. He'd seen me scoping the bird from the parking lot! That is a hell of a lens. He told me that he seen a big flock of Snow Buntings which I'd completely missed. Within that flock, said he, was a longspur. I skirted the dunes and after a walk of about a half mile I saw some movement in the grass and found about a dozen buntings. Then the flock arose from the grass, and I saw that there were 3X as many as I thought. In my head I could hear Scott saying, "Look for the brown one, look for the brown one!" And there was one Lapland Longspur in the flock, which flew overhead then north toward the entrance. I walked the Do Not Enter line but couldn't refind the flock. I can understand one bird hiding in dune grass; I can't understand how an entire flock can disappear into the grass and sand. The grass just isn't that dense. 

Seeing the longspur was the bonus bird of the day and actually one that is a lot harder, at least for me, to come across than the owl. Finding a Snowy Owl just requires steps; finding a longspur requires that its lifeline vector intersects with mine. 

I did something today that I can only recall doing one other time: drove the length of Long Beach Island, from Holgate to Barnegat Light (with a detour to High Bar) and a more enervating driving is hard to imagine, 20 miles of strict adherence to the speed limits (which change every few blocks, it seems) hoping that you don't attract the attention of cop with a speed gun. However, I did add a few year birds--Fish Crows at High Bar while at Holgate I got 2 of the 3 scoter species. I have a feeling that is going to be another year where White-winged Scoter becomes a hard one for me to find. A few years ago, it wasn't until December that I saw them in the county, and then only because Steve took pity on me and drove me up to where a small raft of them was right offshore.