This afternoon, some friends and I joined the Cayuga Bird Club on the field trip to find Short-eared Owls in Ovid, New York. We gathered while it was still light out to search the fields for roosting owls and ran into field birds along the way. I’ve been wanting to get decent photos of Horned Larks for a while now and had my chance today to shoot them right from my car. I am pleased enough with these photos, but of course I always want better.
Horned Lark
Horned Lark
Horned Lark
Horned Lark
We also came across a large flock of Snow Buntings who would repeat the same thing over and over – they would all perch on a wire above the field…
Snow Buntings landing on a Wire
Snow Buntings on a Wire
Snow Buntings on a Wire
… and slowly drip down onto the field; then flush up and repeat.
Snow Buntings
This was my first time seeing Snow Buntings on a wire, so it was a real treat!
Onto the Owl search, as dusk approached and passed, we camped at a spot that the Short-eareds have been spotted in recently. Just as we were losing hope, I spotted a bird flying! Only one other birder got on the probable Owl and we never were able to confirm that it was our target bird, since it was distant and eventually disappeared below the tree line. We described how it was flying while we had it in our binoculars and it could very well have been our bird. Maybe next time we can be more certain and more people can see it…