Snow Bunting Row
These Snow Buntings are all lined up and ready to launch to the north soon as they continue to molt into a brighter, whiter snowy color every day. Birds are getting their feathers set for spring and to look their best when finding a mate. What does this arrangement on the roof look like to you? Caption it!
Read MoreSnow Buntings
It is early enough in the avian wintering season that both the earth and the birds – in this case, Snow Buntings (Plectrophenax nivalis) – are brown. We do not have a solid snow cover yet, and it is amazing how well this plumage is designed to help them blend in to the ground. The Snow Bunting camouflage looks like brown grass and, somehow, a rocky, sandy and rough earth, with their wings showing off the darker pattern of what the tundra and short grasslands look like now. Notice how well these birds keep themselves just off the surface even while engaged in feeding, hiding their...
Read MoreDunlin (Calidris alpina)
The Dunlin (Calidris alpina) are really starting to molt into their breeding plumage now, with birds like this one at Stratford Point in Stratford, Connecticut coming along nicely. Once it wraps up changing into its summer suit it will be on its way to the tundra. You can see so many shorebirds in May, and just in the last couple days at this one site there were also Semipalmated Plovers, Semipalmated Sandpipers, Sanderling, Short-billed Dowitchers, Black-bellied Plovers, Piping Plovers, American Oystercatchers, Lesser Yellowlegs, Killdeer and Least Sandpipers, all being recorded by us in...
Read MoreSleepy Snowy Owl
I recently found this Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus) taking a snooze on a cloudy and dreary sort of morning, sitting in the snow in some grasslands, blending in well with its surroundings. This bird looks to be an adult male with an almost all-white head and body. Despite how sleepy it was it stayed on guard, a silent and barely-moving sentinel occasionally turning its head to check something out with eyes still nearly entirely shut. There are still plenty of these visitors around, and soon enough they will be moving back to the north. Get out and find one! Scott Kruitbosch Conservation &...
Read MoreArctic Visitors
With the recent snows and plummeting temperatures, the Snowy Owls within the area are feeling right at home in the tundra like conditions. These arctic visitors, that typically visit the region’s many snowy and seemingly barren fields in an irregular fashion, are in full force for a second year with multiple sightings throughout Chautauqua County. While most of us are cooped up inside protecting ourselves from the elements, these owls endure the weather while perching themselves on good vantage points within fields or along beaches, getting an owl’s eye view in search of small...
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