We've been having quite the irruptive year for Snowy Owls here on the east coast, and a bunch here in Maine. After going into a food coma yesterday and missing out on my Thanksgiving Day birding, AB and I went down to the shore near the Biddeford Pool (about an hour away) to look for a Snowy that had been seen there last week.
We went out to the shoreline at the end of Orcutt Road:
It wasn't anywhere this green out there (image is a screen capture of Google Maps). You see the little island there in the right corner, the one on the left? That was easily visible from Ocean Avenue, where I parked. I walked a little path through the brush to the rocks, my eyes fixed on a white blob on the rock.
Once I got to the rocks, I set up my little scope, focused, and BAM:
I know this is an awful photo, but that white shape on the rocks is a SNOWY OWL! Bird number 415!
We watched him for a while, and we were joined by others looking for the same owl. After seeing some Ruddy Turnstones (beautiful!), Common Eiders, a Horned Grebe, Common and Red-breasted Mergansers, and a lone female Harlequin Duck, we headed home.
Sweet success!
