{"id":13857,"date":"2024-12-01T17:01:29","date_gmt":"2024-12-01T22:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=13857"},"modified":"2024-12-01T17:01:29","modified_gmt":"2024-12-01T22:01:29","slug":"sunday-shots-12-01-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=13857","title":{"rendered":"Sunday Shots 12\/01\/24"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Regular readers of the blog may remember that I am a big fan of winter birding. While this weekend didn’t offer up anything too exciting, there were plenty of birds around to enjoy. My favorite moments included a decent sized flock of Snow Buntings in the black dirt on Friday afternoon (approximately 65 birds or so). On Saturday afternoon I enjoyed watching and photographing one of the tightest packed large flock of mixed blackbirds that I’ve ever seen. It was so much fun to see, and I find the photos fascinating to examine. As far as I can tell, three different species were present (mostly Red-winged Blackbirds, with some Brown-headed Cowbirds and European Starlings sprinkled throughout), and the images vary wildly depending on species present, orientation of the birds, and the light (among other variables). And finally, I had a brief but productive experience with an American Kestrel; usually a skittish species, this male was super focused on hunting something in the vegetation roadside, which allowed for some good photo ops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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~American Kestrel in the black dirt, 12\/01\/24.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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~Snow Buntings in the black dirt, 11\/29\/24.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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~More Snow Buntings. Black Dirt Region 11\/30\/24.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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~Living up to their name, Red-winged Blackbirds predominate this image. Blackbird flock in the black dirt, 11\/30\/24.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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~Now that’s a lot of blackbirds! Mixed flock in the black dirt, 11\/30\/24.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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~Blackbird flock in action, Black Dirt Region 11\/30\/24.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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~Mixed flock of blackbirds in the black dirt, 11\/30\/24.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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~I love this shot. It was a mostly gloomy afternoon, but the sun did poke out from time to time. Blackbirds in the black dirt 11\/30\/24.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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~American Kestrel hunting roadside in the Black Dirt Region, 12\/01\/24.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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~In hover mode – AMKE in the BDR 12\/01\/24.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regular readers of the blog may remember that I am a big fan of winter birding. While this weekend didn’t offer up anything too exciting, there were plenty of birds around to enjoy. My favorite moments included a decent sized flock of Snow Buntings in the black dirt on Friday afternoon (approximately 65 birds or … Continue reading “Sunday Shots 12\/01\/24”<\/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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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":[6,19,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orangecounty","category-photos","category-raptors"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i3kT-3Bv","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13857","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=13857"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13874,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13857\/revisions\/13874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}