Snowies Twinkle On The Beach

After several reports of ones and twos - all of which I missed! - I finally connected with my first Cape May Snow Buntings today, and was pleasantly surprised to find a party of 36 of them feeding on the beach behind the plover ponds at the Cape May Point State Park.

Some of the Snow Buntings at Cape May Point today, resting between feeding bouts. Snow Buntings regularly have spells resting from feeding, during which they spend a lot of time preening.

It's always nice to come across interesting behavior when watching birds. This Snow Bunting found a useful source of fresh water in an upturned shell.

From my bird banding days, I recall that ageing and sexing Snow Buntings involves much head-scratching, involving the amount of white in the wings. Just look at the variation in these!

Elsewhere (in addition to birds already mentioned by Don), the male Redhead seems to have moved to Lighthouse Pond from Lily Lake and at least 10 Hooded Mergansers and four Lesser Scaup were on the plover ponds today. At least three River Otters were back in Lily Lake early this morning.