{"id":13908,"date":"2024-12-24T19:39:39","date_gmt":"2024-12-25T00:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=13908"},"modified":"2024-12-24T19:39:39","modified_gmt":"2024-12-25T00:39:39","slug":"christmas-eve-birding-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=13908","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Eve Birding 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I can’t remember if I’ve ever had the opportunity to bird on Christmas Eve since I started seriously birding over 12 years ago. But this year, circumstances were such that I was able to get out for a couple hours in the evening. I went out to the black dirt region and drove around. Slowly, an interesting and enjoyable evening of birding began to unfold. I was seeing a fair number of Red-tailed Hawks around, which is pretty normal. But then one flew over my car with what looked like a snake in its talons. I saw where the hawk perched and got closer to explore. Sure enough, the raptor had a live snake and was starting to consume it. Where does a Red-tailed Hawk find a snake in the dead of winter? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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~Red-tailed Hawk enjoying a meal in the black dirt, 12\/24\/24.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I started seeing more and more raptors; mostly Red-tails (~10) and Northern Harriers (~8), but I also had a Peregrine Falcon and 4 Adult Bald Eagles. The icing on the cake was finding 3 Short-eared Owls. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a shorty, so I really enjoyed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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~Short-eared Owl in the Black Dirt Region, 12\/24\/24.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I saw and heard many, many Horned Larks flying around, and I heard at least 2 Lapland Longspurs among them, but no Snow Buntings. As the sun was setting, many, many Canada Geese were flying in, looking for a place to roost for the night. I had a small flock of 7 Snow Geese with them. I had a brief moment t of excitement- in a distant field I spotted a lone swan. I figured for sure it would be either a Tundra or a Trumpeter, but unfortunately it turned out to be a Mute Swan! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Mute Swan sitting out in a field before. I guess you just never know what you will find if you get out and go birding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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~Mute Swan in a field!?! What the heck? Black dirt region, 12\/24\/24.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can’t remember if I’ve ever had the opportunity to bird on Christmas Eve since I started seriously birding over 12 years ago. But this year, circumstances were such that I was able to get out for a couple hours in the evening. I went out to the black dirt region and drove around. Slowly, … Continue reading “Christmas Eve Birding 2024”<\/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":[23,6,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-black-dirt","category-orangecounty","category-raptors"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i3kT-3Ck","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13908","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=13908"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13913,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13908\/revisions\/13913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}