Bob's World: Who Who

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a male cardinal • photo by Sandy Bacon

Five degrees below freezing and I am walking the Gurnet again. I guess that I am a full-fledged New Englander. Yesterday was a GREAT bird day with a red-shouldered hawk perching within 20 feet of our eight inch light fluffy snowed in casa. We all watched the show for at least four hours. At first I told Abel that it was a red-tailed hawk but when I Googled it, I saw it was actually a red-shouldered. My very first sighting. Love is a many splendored bird. His feathers were just beautiful. They were many red-shouldered hawks in the 1950’s until the red-taileds came back big time. Sandy snapped a photo or two or three or twenty. Here is one or two or three. What a beautiful, magical bird. Si?

red-shouldered hawk • photo by Sandy Bacon

I park at the pavilion on Duxbury Beach. The tide is still high so I have to walk the gravel road south toward Saquish. The sky is blue; the snow is white. There is no wind. Mexico in less than three days, but this is spectacular Also. Dad called …. never mind. Right away I come up on three cars checking out a snowy owl. The man that catches them at Logan Airport has relocated 24 of them here this winter from the taxi and runways of Boston. A car stops. The driver asks me if that is, in fact, a snowy owl. It is the first one he and his son have ever seen. I have seen so many that I rarely stop now to eyeball them.

As we talk, a harrier falcon with a face just like a peregrine flies right in front of us. What a sight! I see him hunting, flying, cruising, 6-10 feet over the dune grass, nearly every time I walk Duxbury Beach.

Before the father leaves, he tells me that this very morning he spotted an eagle in the west bay. What a day we are all having.

There are loons swimming in Duxbury Bay and the Powder Point Bridge is still covered with yesterday’s snow. Just past the Second Crossover I see vehicle activity and instead of walking the beach, I continue on the gravel road. Good move. There is this face as big as a dinner plate on top of a snowed-in dune. “It is a female snowy,” the lady with the scope tells me. She has been here since 7:00am. It is now 1:00pm.