We pulled out of the parking lot onto a posted dirt road. The first 100 yards or so weren’t too bad but once that ran out you understood why you needed a 4 Wheel Drive to navigate. As we bumped and bounced from pot hole to pot hole we all laughed about the damage we must be doing to the suspension on the vans.
We were traveling along a narrow peninsula that runs from Duxbury to Plymouth. At the tip is Gurnet Light marking the entrance to Plymouth Bay. The homes located out here are all private and access is restricted. The length of the peninsula from the Powder Point Bridge to Gurnet Light is about 5 miles.
We hadn’t gone too far when Dave pulled off the road into a little turnout. He told us all to get out of the van while he ran around to the back to take out a spotting scope. Sally’s van was pulled up behind ours and she was busy getting out another scope. Once they were set up Dave told us to take a look. A snowy was sitting on the bank of ice with the water just behind him. Without the scope it was really hard to see the little fella. Dave confessed that he knew it was there because they had seen it that morning when it caught a duck for its breakfast. He’d checked just before he picked us up to be sure it was still there. It was a long way out but the scopes really made it pop out. My best guess photo wasn’t so hot.
Can you tell which snow chunk is the owl? He’s just left of the building in the background.
Here it is a MAXIMUM ..that gray blotch is the owl. He was much clearer in the spotting scope.
We stayed there taking turns with the spotting scopes until some of the less hardy souls began to drift back to the van. Once about half of us had left Dave announced it was time to move on.
Back in the van Dave was chatting about the owl when he spotted 3 little birds setting down in the grass on the dune. While he was concentrating on that I let out a shout..HAWK!. It was diving right toward us! It wanted one of those little birds for lunch. They took off and the hawk swooped right past us, Dave identified it as a Cooper’s Hawk. That was exciting. Almost as good as seeing the Snowy.
A bit further on we stopped and piled out of the van again. This time the spotting scope showed us a flock of snow buntings scratching in the dune sand for seeds.
They paid no attention to us and once again we watched until about half of our group had returned to the van. Still no great photo ops except for the scenery but I was having fun.