{"id":6688,"date":"2017-01-21T19:50:22","date_gmt":"2017-01-22T00:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=6688"},"modified":"2017-01-21T19:50:22","modified_gmt":"2017-01-22T00:50:22","slug":"good-birding-at-the-grasslands-012117","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=6688","title":{"rendered":"Good Birding at the Grasslands, 01\/21\/17"},"content":{"rendered":"
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~Northern Harrier in good light, Shawangunk Grasslands NWR, 01\/21\/17.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After an uneventful morning of birding under gray skies, the clouds lifted in the early afternoon and I decided to head to Shawangunk Grasslands National Wildlife Refuge<\/a>. I felt that I was arriving a little bit late to be able to get a photo blind, but as luck would have it, the closest\u00a0north blind was still vacant and I grabbed it.\u00a0Northern Harriers were plentiful and offered many photo ops, some of which I took advantage of, and some, well, not so much. American Tree Sparrows were heard more than seen, but I did finally get a bird that sat up for me for a few pics. The highlight of the day, however was when I saw a NORTHERN SHRIKE<\/strong> perched on\u00a0a distant bush. I snapped off a few photos just before the bird flew and I was unable to relocate it. I had this bird back in November but was unable to get any photos, and it has been reported intermittently since then. I found out when I left the blind that other birders had seen the bird briefly as well. Also exciting,\u00a0the Short-eared Owls got up early enough for some halfway decent photos and really great looks. On my way out, I ran into many birders that I know and it was good to shoot the breeze and catch up with several of them in the parking area. Good birding at the Grasslands!<\/p>\n

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~Ha! I finally got a shot of a NORTHERN SHRIKE! A distant and noisy shot, but I’ll take it. Shawangunk Grasslands NWR, 01\/21\/17.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~Beautiful bird. Northern Harrier perched at Shawangunk Grasslands NWR, 01\/21\/17.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~Going down for prey, NOHA at Shawangunk Grasslands NWR, 01\/21\/17.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~Northern Harrier coming at the blind, Shawangunk Grasslands NWR, 01\/21\/17.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~American Tree Sparrow at Shawangunk Grasslands NWR, 01\/21\/17.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~A perched Short-eared Owl watches a high flying Northern Harrier, Shawangunk Grasslands NWR, 01\/21\/17.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~Short-eared Owl in flight, Shawangunk Grasslands NWR, 01\/21\/17.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After an uneventful morning of birding under gray skies, the clouds lifted in the early afternoon and I decided to head to Shawangunk Grasslands National Wildlife Refuge. I felt that I was arriving a little bit late to be able to get a photo blind, but as luck would have it, the closest\u00a0north blind was … Continue reading “Good Birding at the Grasslands, 01\/21\/17”<\/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":[19,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photos","category-raptors"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i3kT-1JS","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6688","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=6688"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6700,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6688\/revisions\/6700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}