Deegan Family Blog: Other L.I. Adventures...

Thanks to Andy's mom, one of our favorite babysitters, Andy and I were able to sneak away for a few hours to get some early morning birding at Jones Beach State Park. Jones Beach can be a nightmare mass of people in the summer but in the winter it's really lovely. And the birding is excellent too. We were hoping to see a few things like horned larks, american pipits, purple sandpiper and lapland longspur, and we were not disappointed. We saw all of those and more.

Sandpiper footprints on wet sand

We thought we were lucky to see a female King Eider (only the 2nd time for that species for us) but the true highlight of the visit was not one, but TWO, snowy owls... fighting with a peregrine falcon!!! It was like a David Attenborough special. First we saw a bunch of photographers low-crawling on the beach, so we knew something was up. Without going too close (photographers hate it when you scare their models away) we saw that it was a snowy owl sitting on the sand. About 45 minutes later, we were headed back and we saw another snowy flying down the beach. We realized it wasn't the same one just at the same moment that the first snowy took off to meet the new one. It didn't get within 30 feet before out of nowhere came a peregrine falcon, dive bombing it. The falcon buzzed one owl, then the next owl, back and forth, for about 5 minutes. Then he flew off and sat on a log. When the owls finally flew to each other, I was happy they would be reunited, until they started fighting too. Oh well, secrets of the animal kingdom I guess. It was one of those rare scenes we'll remember for a long time. The funny part was that when the first owl took off to meet the second, the photographers didn't even look where it went and missed the drama that was happening not 20 yards down the beach, right in front of us! I wish we had brought our SLR, but I only had my point-and-shoot camera...you can get the idea from these shots though.

Photographers watching the first owl

One of the snowys

Peregrine falcon (left) buzzing a snowy owl (right)

On the way back to NH we took the Port Jefferson Ferry to Bridgeport, CT to cut out the city driving and traffic. It was a great decision, since it was 55 degrees out and we were able to sit outside and enjoy the fresh salty air for an hour and a half instead of driving in the car. Aiden had a lot of fun on the "BIG boat." We had 2 coast guard escorts for the entire ride across L.I. Sound (one with a manned machine gun at the front....slightly unnerving)- we heard people talking with the ferry staff that Homeland Security sends escorts randomly over the holiday season (other ferries we passed did not have them) so I calmed down a little and got over my initial theory that there was a bomb threat on our boat. Anyway, we made it in three whole pieces, so all is well.