Best of Long Island Wildlife Photography 3-8-19

By Mike Busch

March is a great time of year for wildlife photography as winter birds and ducks start to transition into breeding plumage before heading north. A great example of this is the Common Loon which is changing from a bland winter gray into a striking bird with a black checkered back, iridescent black head, black bill, red eyes, a prominent white “necklace” marking around the neck, and a much smaller white “chinstrap” marking at the throat.

I took the photo below this week showing the start of the transition followed by another Loon in full breeding plumage taken last May.

March is also the time to start listening and watching for the first Osprey of the season. Last year we saw the first reports around March 17th, odds are that many have already left from South America and are already on the way up for the summer.

The Long Island Wildlife Photography group had another impressive week and with help from Jim Botta we picked out just a fraction of great shots posted on the page this week below. At this point we could easily feature 200 photos so if we missed your great shot we apologize.

This week’s cover goes to Janis Hurley with a beautiful Horned Grebe.