About 8:35am I was watching an immature Harrier hunting the marsh south of High Pines from inside my car when a large bird startled me as it flew low over the car from behind and headed out toward the south edge of the marsh. My first instinct was that it would be the male Harrier that has been on the Beach all winter, but as I soon as the floppy flight pattern registered, I grabbed for my camera to try for some shots of my first Shortie since Jan.1st.

He had been working his way northward up the Beach following the road, and just after he passed over me and reached the marsh, he dropped into the grass. I drove up to parallel where he went to ground and, using my car as a blind, was able to take shots over a 5 minute period after which he rose up, made a couple of floppy passes back and forth over the marsh and then headed northward up over High Pines. This was almost certainly a migrating bird as there have been no Shortie sightings on Duxbury Beach this winter that I am aware of other than the flyby I had on January 1st.