Every once in awhile, I just have to make time for a trip to find an unusual bird. This isn't much of a report-- yesterday I did one of my "to the birdmobile!" trips in which I spent 2 1/4 hours driving + 1/4 hour backtracking to figure out where I went wrong, to lovely Strafford, NH. About 10 days ago, someone posted a photo to the NH bird group saying there was this odd looking bird at the library does anyone know what it is.
I looked at and wrote back "I'm sure I must be wrong about this, but it very much looks like a Townsend's Solitaire." Turns out it was a Solitaire and has been hanging out there since. I gave it a shot yesterday, clearing my schedule for it 'cause it's kind of a haul.
Turns out I was quite fortunate-- the bird only showed up briefly, but it gave me gorgeous looks. I also had a small flock of redpolls, and I think there were some hoary redpolls in there but I'm not 100% certain on that (link to thumbnails of all of them here, if anyone has suggestions).
I'll include just two photos:
All my photos from yesterday are here.
What birds have you driven more than 2 hours each way to see? Was it worth the trip? Would you do it again?