Snowy Plover A New York State first!

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Over the last couple of years there have been a few piping plovers that show up on this secluded ,hard to get to beach. Easily accessible by boat but a 2.5 mile death march through woods and sand. I made the journey earlier in the summer to visit a piping plover but got lucky because a friend of a friend had a boat. How luxurious it was to boat out to the beach, land walk by all the tanning mass of humanity, the smell of tanning lotion thick in the air! But this time there would be no boat. Good God seriously? Well I sucked it up and made the trek after I heard an 80 year old had made it out and back ,why couldn't an out of shape retiree do it? I did think ahead and said well I will just bring my Nikon P950, a bridge camera with amazing zoom and video capabilities after all i just wanted to add the bird to my life list. Halfway there i meet up with some fellow birders coming back and I ask anxiously "how much farther?". They respond " see that bulldozer off in the distance, its beyond that." Well i finally get to the end of the peninsula see a few shorebirds on the way down but no snowy plover. I ask a nice woman birding if she has seen it and she says it was just right here in front of her but flew off. seriously!!! I look down the beach and i zoom in with the P950 and i see a plover and i ask her is that it? She says yes it is and I hurriedly move down while not attempting to spook the bird. As I approach I see why the bird is tough to see , it hunkers down in the sand and blends in perfectly. I get my shots and hope that i will make it back to my car alive! Note to self...next time bring water. Maybe buy a boat?

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