Barred Owl

Saturday did not start out too well for me. I went to Moose Hill Audubon Refuge in Walpole to look for three species I had never seen before. They are Evening Grossbeak, Red Crossbills, and Pine Siskin. All three species were seen on Friday at various points. All three are in the finch family and are pretty rare visitors from the far north. For reasons unknown to me this year is predicted to be a "big finch year". All three species have come south in numbers rarely seen. 

To put the rarity into perspective, the rarest of these is the Evening Grossbeak. One lady at Moose Hill started to talk to me. She said the last E Gossbeak she saw in Massachusetts was 1992! She did say she has seen some in Maine since.

It doesn't matter however, I stood in front of the feeders with other birders from 8-11 am. The Crossbills made a five second appearance at the top of a tall spruce. I got a glimpse of a silhouette, but nothing that I am going to count as seeing. It was cold and we were all miserable. At eleven I left to go birding . 

 As you can see from the below post, I had a good afternoon in southern RI. The highlight was a Barred Owl. It was in a small tree at the back of a field near the road. As I was driving by the field I saw three guys with huge cameras on tripods. I clearly knew they were looking at some animal. I pulled over and sure enough, it was this owl. It was unfazed by the photographers. It spent its time sleeping and looking in the grass when it heard a rodent move.. 

The light was at my side. There was no way to get a better angle The sun was from the south and I was east of the bird. There wasn't anyway to get my back to the sun. Even if I did, there was a tangle of branches that would have completely blocked out the owl. Still, seeing an owl at any time is awesome. I watched it for 30 minutes before moving on. When I left, I went to Trustom where the conditions were perfect for photographing ducks.