lifers: greater-scaup, long-tailed-duck, dunlin, bonapartes-gull, horned-grebe

Ray and I took a day trip down to Hammonasset to finally get out of the house after sheltering from the literal feet of snow we’ve gotten over the last few months. The weather was going to be warm, or at least warmer than the below freezing it had been for the better part of six weeks. We set off after lunch and yapped the whole time. Philosophy, shaggy dog hairstyles, and jamming to Dolly. When we arrived, we were both a little unsure of where to go. There was no plan except get to Hammo. The main beach held us for a bit with a couple black ducks and black-backed gulls. Making our way toward Meig’s Point, we kept making stops to look at whatever caught our eye. A fella with a scope starts to walk by us and Ray hollers out, “Hey! Is your name Steve?” And it certainly was. She had recognized the Steve Mayo. After a little conversation with him, it was clear everyone was headed the same way, so we stuck together. Steve knew just about every bird out there, and I definitely wouldn’t have IDed as many lifers without his help. At the tip of the point, we looked out over the ocean of ducks where we saw the scaups, the grebe, and the single Bonaparte’s Gull hanging out with some ring-billeds. Oh and I forgot, the Long-tailed Duck flew by a few times too. Another fun ’lifer’ were the seals that were sun bathing on the sand bar. We returned to the main beach again because there said to be hundreds of scoters, so it was possible we could get all three in one look. We had already seen Black and Surf, so we were only missing White-winged. Steve was ’taking Ray’ to see them, but I’m not sure if she was excited for the scoters, or just to be outside again. They chatted a lot about iNaturalist, their contributions there, and some other folks they know from the site. It’s funny how these people become household names in these communities. I had no idea what Steve looked like until that day, but I had seen his posts in the CT RBA group chat and looked at his pictures on eBird. It was a truly fantastic outing that day- I mean five lifers in one day is kinda hard to beat, even if you’re a young’in like me.