{"id":12270,"date":"2023-02-04T17:32:25","date_gmt":"2023-02-04T22:32:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=12270"},"modified":"2023-02-04T17:32:25","modified_gmt":"2023-02-04T22:32:25","slug":"arctic-blast-black-dirt-birding-02-04-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=12270","title":{"rendered":"Arctic Blast Black Dirt Birding, 02\/04\/23"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I love these cold, crisp, sunny days. Especially after a long work week with absolutely no birding – it just feels good to be out and about. This morning it was cold enough for me to stick primarily to car birding, so I drove around the black dirt. I made an effort to explore some areas that are a bit off my personal beaten path; it gave me a little bit of sense of exploration even though I was close to home. It was an enjoyable morning with pretty much the usuals. There is still a large flock of Snow Geese in the area – these days they are on the south end of the black dirt, close to the Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge. I found several flocks of Horned Larks but no flocks of Snow Buntings. Sifting through the larks, I was able to find a couple of Lapland Longspurs and a couple of Snow Buntings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
~Horned Lark in the black dirt, 02\/04\/23.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I also had several large flocks of blackbirds. These flocks were probably 99% Common Grackles, with just a smattering of Red-winged Blackbirds, Brown-headed Cowbirds, and European Starlings among them. At one point I caught a flash of white in a flying flock – my immediate thought was Yellow-headed Blackbird. I eventually relocated the bird and it was a Common Grackle with several white tail feathers and white at the back of the head. It was a cool looking bird, and it got my heart racing for a minute. Unfortunately the bird did not cooperate for any decent photos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
~Common Grackles galore. Black dirt, 02\/04\/23.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
~There were 3 Red-tailed Hawks in this tree, and a fourth in another evergreen right next to it. Black dirt region 02\/04\/23.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
~More Common Grackles in the black dirt, 02\/04\/23.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love these cold, crisp, sunny days. Especially after a long work week with absolutely no birding – it just feels good to be out and about. This morning it was cold enough for me to stick primarily to car birding, so I drove around the black dirt. I made an effort to explore some … Continue reading “Arctic Blast Black Dirt Birding, 02\/04\/23”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-black-dirt","category-orangecounty"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i3kT-3bU","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12275,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12270\/revisions\/12275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}