{"id":8217,"date":"2018-06-10T16:38:47","date_gmt":"2018-06-10T20:38:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=8217"},"modified":"2018-06-10T16:38:47","modified_gmt":"2018-06-10T20:38:47","slug":"finally-orange-county-ruffed-grouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=8217","title":{"rendered":"Finally! Orange County RUFFED GROUSE!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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~I have this as an Acadian Flycatcher. It was only doing half of its call (the “peetz” in \u00a0the “pizza!” call), but it sounded good to me. Black Rock Forest, 06\/10\/18.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

RUFFED GROUSE is a bird that I have been trying to get in Orange County for several years now; it’s a bird that, for some reason, really captured my imagination and one that I’ve put in a concerted effort to try and find in the county. So, imagine how pleased I was when I saw Ajit Antony’s eBird report <\/a>of a RUGR at Black Rock Forest<\/a> in my “Year Needs Alert” email from eBird on Friday. I had a work obligation yesterday, but I got up early to try for the bird this morning.<\/p>\n

It was frustrating start to the morning for me. I don’t know Black Rock Forest at all, so I originally went to completely the wrong place. Then I went to the Black Rock Forest main parking area, where I had a Hooded Warbler calling as soon as I got out of the car. \u00a0I looked at the map trying to locate “Jupiter’s Boulder”. \u00a0An obliging local hiker helped me out and told me it would be best to drive to another trailhead, on Old Mineral Springs Road. So, I got back in the car and drove there; I walked nearly half a mile and realized I’d forgotten rain gear for my camera – it sure felt like rain, so I walked back to the car to get it (thus guaranteeing no rain). Then, I was finally ready to take a hike. I’d never birded that area before and it was a nice hike with a beautiful waterfall (no pic, my cell phone died!), and good amount of birds – mostly the usuals but with a couple favorites of mine – Yellow-billed Cuckoo, and a couple of Acadian Flycatchers. You can see my eBird report here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ajit’s report stated he heard the drumming of a RUGR “to the SW, a little way from Jupiter’s Boulder”. \u00a0As I was nearing Jupiter’s Boulder (I didn’t know it at the time, having never been), I came around a bend in the trail and about twenty-five feet or so off the trail, to the left of me, \u00a02 RUFFED GROUSE popped straight up – and like bats out of hell, one flew to the left and the other to the right. They made such a ruckus, it really startled me. I followed the one that headed to the right, hoping to see it put down, but it just kept going until it disappeared into the brush. I continued on the trail, hoping to get lucky and relocate that bird, but it was always going to be tough. Jupiter’s Boulder was only another 100 yards or so up the trail, so I sat there for a while and had some breakfast, hoping to hear or see something. Of course, I never saw either bird again, but wow was that exciting. Huge thanks to Ajit for reporting – Ruffed Grouse is my 250th Orange County life bird. Now, let’s see how many years before I get a GOOD look at one…<\/p>\n

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~My ONLY other photo op of the morning – a Brown-headed Cowbird. This has the look of a young bird to me. Black Rock Forest, 06\/10\/18.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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~I took this shot a couple weeks ago at the Bashakill and I’ve wanted to post it – two Bank Swallows displaying courtship behavior; they just looks so sweet to me and Bank Swallow is not a bird I get to photograph very often.~ \u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUFFED GROUSE is a bird that I have been trying to get in Orange County for several years now; it’s a bird that, for some reason, really captured my imagination and one that I’ve put in a concerted effort to try and find in the county. So, imagine how pleased I was when I saw … Continue reading “Finally! Orange County RUFFED GROUSE!”<\/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":[6,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orangecounty","category-rarities"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i3kT-28x","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8217","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=8217"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8226,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8217\/revisions\/8226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}