Snowy owls have been seen all along the Massachusetts coast this winter, especially at Duxbury Beach – but that doesn’t mean they can’t be found elsewhere. Duxbury Beach is a place where birds relocated from Logan Airport mingle with natural arrivals in what are called “irruption” years, when large numbers of the birds fly south to our territory for unknown reasons. But what the birds are looking for is a place like home: flat, cold, barren, tundra-like. Think Humarock, Brant Rock, Nantasket Beach, etc.
This character was captured in pixels by John Galluzzo at Scusset Beach State Reservation in Sandwich on January 2, 2014, in a large, flat, cold, barren, tundra-like place: the parking lot. He was counted on the Plymouth Christmas Bird Count just seconds before the team fled from the reservation, as the park closed in the face of the winter storm.