On the road in upstate NY - Northern Hawk Owl (YES)...

An upstate trip came together within days and so early yesterday, I joined Joe Guinta and Sy Schiff on a 300 + miles excursion to upstate NY. We were later joined by Sam Janazzo. 350 miles later, both groups met up in Champlain NY, where in a matter of 10-15 minutes were on a Northern Hawk Owl. We had outstanding looks of this bird. I would have liked to have observed this bird some more especially watching it hunt, but an overzealous neighbor ruined the moment. Nevertheless, I got some decent photos, which I will post once I have a chance to look at them.

There was a possibility that we could have added a few more birds in the area as we received intelligence that there were 2 Northern Shrikes and Ruffed Grouse seen in the same location as the Owl. However, the intelligence was received late and we had already left the area. Last night during dinner we plotted our route for today and it remains to be seen if we would deviate from our route to do the 20 miles drive to the spot to try for the Shrikes and Grouse.

A review of my day list from yesterday show:

1. American Crow
2. American Robin
3. Black-backed Woodpecker
4. Black-capped Chickadee
5. Blue-Jay
6. Bufflehead
7. Common Goldeneye
8. Common Grackle
9. Common Merganser
10. Downy Woodpecker
11. European Starling
12. Greater Scaup
13. Mallard
14. Northern Flicker
15. Northern Hawk Owl
16. Red-breasted Merganser
17. Red-tail Hawk
18. Ring-billed Gull
19. Rock Pigeon
20. Tufted Titmouse
21. Turkey Vulture

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