The last couple of years there have been snowy owls present on Plum Island, however, they have been too far to photograph with my camera lenses. This year there are at least two or maybe three snowy owls present at Duxbury Beach.Before I present my photographs, some information about snowy owls. Snowy owls normally summer in the north circumpolar region. During the winter, they will occur South through Canada and northern Eurasia and in some years, much further southward. Snowy owls are diurnal in nature and will hunt both in the daytime and in the night.
During the breeding season, they usually will eat lemmings and other small rodents, or juvenile ptarmigan. In the winter. They are more opportunistic, feeding on a variety of small mammals, including rabbits, squirrels molts, docs, geese, shorebirds and also fish and carrion.
Duxbury Beach is owned by the Duxbury Beach Reservation, Inc., who leases most of the beach holdings to the town of Duxbury for the use of the residence and the general public. To reach where the snowy owls are requires a walk of around 2 1/2 miles or if you purchase and over the sand sticker you are able to drive along the road. Stickers are available at the Duxbury town hall or online with the payment of the fee.
The day that I was there, there were a number of birders and photographers present all interested in observing and photographing this beautiful bird.
The bird I photograph was originally close to the road and then flew off, most of the time below the berm of the beach and landed further up in the marsh. Most everybody traveled to follow the bird and we were able to be on a sandy area on the marsh. The day that we were there it was also the time of the new Moon, and also at the time of high tide, the water started to cover the marsh and drove us back onto the road. However, a good time was had by everyone, and we all were able to enjoy the splendor of this bird.
Environmental picture on the Marsh
I saw one snowy owl about 3/4 way down road to the Gurnet heading south right when you turn the last real curve and come to the area with a lot of marsh grass on right side, there it was right at waters edge...then a car came it flew off.As I headed back toward bridge with eyes wide open.... I saw it again on top of one of the wooden poles in dune off to the right before shoreline...it took flight soon after only to pair up with another with a face a little greyer than the first sight which was almost pure white... maybe male and female are different in color. This was about 6:30
ReplyDeleteSunday evening. They continued on towards the marsh area north of bridge. 1st time ever..BEAUTIFUL.
Tracy K. Woods