{"id":2930,"date":"2014-07-04T12:05:38","date_gmt":"2014-07-04T16:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=2930"},"modified":"2014-07-04T12:06:00","modified_gmt":"2014-07-04T16:06:00","slug":"independence-day-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=2930","title":{"rendered":"Independence Day 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Skunk<\/a>
Skunk Kit on the Liberty Loop, Wallkill River NWR, 7\/4\/14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I woke up early on this rainy Independence Day and walked the Liberty Loop at the Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge. It rained on and off as I walked the loop, but it was quite birdy with high numbers of many of the expected species. The highlight of the morning, however, was not bird related. I was walking the east side of the loop and I saw a skunk up ahead on the trail. It was very white and I believe it is likely the same skunk<\/a> that I photographed at the same location back in March. I hustled to try to catch up to the skunk and at some point I realized that the skunk was actually heading towards me, rather than away, and that it had something in its mouth – a young skunk! I stepped off the trail and waited. The pair of skunks got pretty close before the adult (mother?) went off trail with her kit still in her grasp. I moved ahead quickly, thinking that she wanted to continue down\u00a0the trail but didn’t because of my presence, but she never reemerged. I continued along the east side of the trail and saw two more skunk kits on the trail in the distance. In my binoculars I could see no movement; I thought something had happened and they were both dead. Once I reached them, I realized that I was mistaken, they were both fine. I snapped a few pictures of the kits and I was checking behind me to see if the mother was coming back for them. I moved past the kits to a safe distance and the mother eventually did come back. I watched as the she\u00a0collected one of them and then headed back the way she came. I did not stay to watch her pick up the third kit, but I was thinking that I was happy it was a rainy morning and that she would not likely be disturbed again this morning as she relocated her kits.<\/p>\n

\"Adult<\/a>
Adult skunk transporting a kit down the trail. Wallkill River NWR, 7\/4\/14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As far as the birding went, I had a nice morning seeing the expected birds and I totaled 29 species for the day. My best bird for the day was a young Red-bellied Woodpecker, a bird that I’ve never seen before:<\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>
I have this as a young Red-bellied Woodpecker. This shot is a little soft, but it was low light all morning with the rainy conditions. Wallkill River NWR, 7\/4\/14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"I<\/a>
I was just saying recently that I never get shots of Northern Cardinals in the field. NOCA in the swamp, Wallkill River NWR, 7\/4\/14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"This<\/a>
This Downy Woodpecker was in the same tree as the young Red-bellied. Wallkill River NWR, 7\/4\/14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"I<\/a>
I feel like I am getting very few opportunities to shoot Great Blue Herons this year. Wallkill River NWR, 7\/4\/14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was an enjoyable morning for me, I have been busy lately so I haven’t gotten out as much. I am finding that I appreciate getting out much more at times like this. Here is my list for the morning:<\/p>\n

Canada Goose 44<\/a>\"IMG_2073\"<\/a>
\nWood Duck 5
\nMallard 35
\nGreat Blue Heron 5
\nGreen Heron 2
\nRed-tailed Hawk 1
\nKilldeer 3
\nMourning Dove 1
\nYellow-billed Cuckoo 1
\nRed-bellied Woodpecker 4
\nDowny Woodpecker 1
\nEastern Kingbird 4
\nBlue Jay 8
\nAmerican Crow 1
\nBarn Swallow 15
\nWood Thrush 3
\nAmerican Robin X
\nGray Catbird 8
\nEuropean Starling 35
\nCommon Yellowthroat 2
\nYellow Warbler 6
\nSong Sparrow X
\nSwamp Sparrow X
\nNorthern Cardinal 3
\nIndigo Bunting 5
\nBobolink 3
\nRed-winged Blackbird X
\nCommon Grackle X
\nAmerican Goldfinch 6<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I woke up early on this rainy Independence Day and walked the Liberty Loop at the Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge. It rained on and off as I walked the loop, but it was quite birdy with high numbers of many of the expected species. The highlight of the morning, however, was not bird related. … Continue reading “Independence Day 2014”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,19,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orangecounty","category-photos","category-wallkillwildlife"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i3kT-Lg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2930","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=2930"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2939,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2930\/revisions\/2939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}