Well with all the reports coming in about the Ivory Gull , I decided to go down to Eastern point Gloucester Mass and see if I could in fact find this bird. When I arrived on Eastern point drive I notice some bird scoping the area, I asked if they had seen the Ivory Gull, hasn't been seen for an hour. Not the answer that I wanted to hear after driving for 3 plus hours but it was a nice day so I got out my scope and started looking at what the coast had to offer. First thing I found was a Common Eider, 
then a Common Loon and some Buffleheads when someone yelled out they have it on the point. Everyone was packing to head out to the point when word also come along that there is no parking down there and that the police are tagging cars and towing , so off we went walking the MILE out to Eastern Point. As we reached the point the question on everyone's mind was-Is the Ivory Gull still here? it was. Someone pointed to the Ivory gull resting on the jetty, scope views were the order of the day when all of a sudden the gull took off 
circled the crowd and landed about 30 feet in front of everyone and began searching for food. What a beautiful little bird compared to the other gulls, a white color that aginest the snow gives new meaning to the color white and if that wasn't enough the color of the bill was amazingly beautiful. I cropped this image below 200% to show the color of the bill , but you can't see the purplish-blue transition to yellow then orange on the lower tip. If you go you'll see the wonderful colors of this bird, photos just don't do it justice.
Here is a list of some of the bird I saw along the coast of Mass : Gadwall, Bufflehead, Black Duck, Common Eider, Common Loon, Glaucous Gull, Thayer's Gull, Iceland Gull, Kumlien's Gull, Snow Buntings, Peregrine Falcon, Northern Mockingbird, Coopers hawk, Red-tailed hawk, Rough-legged hawk, Snowy Owl, White-wing Crossbills along with some of the more common winter birdsI am going to post the W-W Crossbill images in a few days.
Good Birding to all!
Peter
all right reserved © Peter Manship
Thought I would take a ride over to Center Harbor NH to look for the Northern Hawk Owl yesterday. I wanted to see the bird before the freezing cold weather and wind chills that are coming set in. Once there several birders had the owl in their scopes and the cool thing was I was able to look through all the different brands and types of scopes, comparing optics. The surprise for me was how good the image was in the $500 avg price level scope. You had to jump up to a $1000 or more to see the next level of difference and it was noticeable, but not a great deal better. I would say for the average birder wanting to get good looks at distant birds $500 scopes is what you want to be looking at.
Good birding to all!
I watched it flying from pole to pole, sometimes diving to the ground only to come up empty. Then the owl took off and landed in a birch tree just up the street, time to start photographing.
I moved my car to the side street (Quaker Highlands) to get as good a possession as possible and to be out of the traffic on the main road. This was not the best possession with the bird facing way (butt shots) so I just sat and waited for my chance to come.
Three Crows just up the road helped speed things up by causing the owl to repossession in the tree , these last two images and the header image all happened in about a minute before the crows caused the owl to move down the road to a new pole and safety. 
I raised my camera and pressed the trigger, the motordrive fired up and FIVE frames later the camera died. What luck,the battery was dead, but what a sight that Snowy Owl was in the early morning sun light . The owl eventual turned and was last seen heading west along the road. I'm guessing to where Sue Wetmore located it later.
These are more of the other images that I took of the Snowy Owl last Sunday Nov 2nd while on the Brookline (Mass)Bird Club's trip to the NH sea coast. As it turns out there was another snowy owl found that day at Plum Inland and from the Vt e-bird report by Jane Stein about a snowy owl seen on a hawk watch two days before. Here's a link to that report; 
And I found this very interesting report from Ron Pittaway and Jean Iron in Canada dated: November 1, 2008 ontbirds AT hwcn.org Subject: [Ontbirds] Quebec Report - Snowy Owl, Pine Grosbeak, Bohemian Waxwing. Pascal Cote of the Observatoire d'oiseaux de Tadoussac reports the first good movements of Pine Grosbeaks and Bohemian Waxwings on Wednesday when 1200 grosbeaks and 640 waxwings passed the observatory. Common Redpolls are still moving, but less than 2000 per day. Snowy Owl: Lemming numbers are low across the Eastern Arctic. Quebec is experiencing a big flight of Snowy Owls (Quebec's bird) with more and more observations since 25 October. 
This was a very interesting read given the Snowy Owl sittings this week. We could be in for a good winter of Boral and Arctic birds in our own backyards.
We got things rolling with a Fox Sparrow and then a White-crowned Sparrow. 
Moving up the road to Seabrook state park/beach (i don't know which) there was a large flock of Snow Buntings feeding in the park, probably 300 plus . Horned larks flew past, there was Red-throated Loons preening in the harbor channel and I already had three new life birds. And it was only 10 o'clock, It was going to be a great day, little did I know just how good it was going to be.
Steve found a Lapland Longspur which was quite difficult to relocate as the flock of Snow Buntings keep spooking. We were looking in the sand dunes for a Ipswich/Savannah type
We moved on to a place called Bicentennial park in Hampton, here we found some Yellow-rump, Nashville and Black Poll Warblers. 
And just beyond the park is where the Dickcessel was found by David Johnston of Bratteleboro Vermont. Here is a link to Len Medlock's beautiful image of it :
Till then make sure to VOTE and I'll start working on part 2 for next post.
This is life bird #300 a Rufous Hummingbird
