Road Trip To The Ocean

Reports on bird watchers web sites have recently listed many ducks not normally seen in central Maryland.  These reports, along with few wildlife sightings in our area, prompted a trip to the eastern shore recently.  High on our priority list was to find a snowy owl on Assateague Island.  We succeeded in that quest, but it was too far away for a decent photo.  The first photo is taken at 600mm equivalent (400mm lens x 1.5 crop factor)...

You do see the snowy owl, don't you?  Perhaps it will be easier in the following photo that has been heavily cropped...

The owl is the snowball looking object in the exact center of the photo.  Most of it is hidden behind the rocks.

The inlet at Ocean City did hold some new subjects for me.  First, here are some "Oldsquaws" also known as "Long-Tailed Ducks"...

Also present were two species of loons.  In the following photo the larger bird is a Common Loon, the smaller one is a Red-throated Loon...

Scoters, both surf and black varieties, were looking for food...

Surf scoters are depicted in the photos above.  Black scoters are in the following photos...

The new birds to photograph were reward enough for the long ride to Ocean City.  The most unexpected opportunity was this photograph of a Harbor Seal swimming in the inlet...

 

Thanks for visiting, stay well, and come back soon.