Thursday, February 5, 2009

Lapland Longspurs at Jones Beach...

Needing a first of the season, I made a trip out to Jones Beach in the hopes of landing Lapland Longspurs. I felt I had a good chance, as the Jones Beach boys, Sy and Joe, had reported on the 4th, seeing around 15 of them in a flock of Snow Buntings and Horned Larks.Pulling into the Coast Guard Station, I immediately located the flock and after scanning, with my bins, spotted a couple of Longspurs. Having the scope was an added bonus, as I was able to scope the flock very carefully and counted about 12-15, which was a nice number to have around and the most that I have seen in one place. Despite the wind and cold...and it was brutally cold...feeling like below zero! I was able to get some photos. It is not often one gets to capture different species in one composition and so I was quite happy to get this photo of Horned Larks, Lapland Longspurs and Snow Buntings. It makes for a good study on how to differentiate the species when they are flocking together. Share with SociBook.com Bookmark and Share

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