Happy New Year to you too Shortsighted.
A great metaphor for Tabula Rasa indeed. A Snowy Owl in this snowy landscape would be nice to paint this clean slate with. However, I did slightly better on this first day of the year, added another life bird to my list. This morning a fried of mine and I went to Whirlpool area in Niagara in search of a Black-legged Kittiwake. After an hour of search, akin to finding a needle in the haystack, I finally managed to spot the juvenile - once spotted it was easy to track as it was very different from many Bonaparte's and other gulls around when looked from above. For comparison I've added a photo of one of hundreds of Bonaparte's Gull that the Kittiwake was mixing with.
1. Black-legged Kittiwake
2. Bonaparte's Gull - notice the absence of black 'M' patter on its wings and no black band at the end of the tail.
