| Summary: | This chapter details the author's experience walking along the mud and rock edges of the Ashokan Reservoir to look for a Snow Bunting. Since the water from the Ashokan Reservoir glides south for over one hundred miles to supply New York City, the reservoir and the land around it are protected. The Department of Environmental Protection permits people to fish, but did not allow exploring the flats for birds. The author then went to East Kingston instead, where she finally saw some buntings. In the past forty years, Snow Bunting populations have dropped by 50 percent. Researchers do not know why, and their work is complicated by the fact that the bird breeds in such remote places. The Snow Bunting breeds in the Arctic then travels south for the winter looking for similar flat, wide-open landscapes.
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