{"id":8850,"date":"2018-12-23T18:40:10","date_gmt":"2018-12-23T23:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=8850"},"modified":"2018-12-23T18:40:32","modified_gmt":"2018-12-23T23:40:32","slug":"a-good-day-for-raptors-12-23-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=8850","title":{"rendered":"A Good Day For Raptors, 12\/23\/18"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
One of the many Northern Harriers up at the Shawangunk Grasslands this evening, 12\/23\/18. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I spent much of the past couple of days running around Orange County in hopes of adding a bird or two to my 2018 list. My most likely candidates are Cackling Goose, which I can’t believe I haven’t had this year, and Winter Wren, which is a bird that apparently hates me very much. I failed at locating either of my targets, and frankly, the birding was not very exciting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
~These two Black Vultures look almost like they are conspiring something… I’m not sure what they were up to. Warwick, NY 12\/23\/28.~ <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This morning was slightly better than yesterday, and I ended up getting some good looks and decent shots of several raptors. It started early this morning when I had a huge number of Black Vultures in a neighborhood in Warwick, having their way with a road-kill deer. There must have been upwards of 40 Black Vultures, around the carcass, on lawns, and on rooftops. Then, at Wickham Lake, there were 5 Bald Eagles present – 3 adults and 2 young birds. Later, I ran into the leucistic Red-tailed Hawk in Warwick for the first time in absolutely ages. On my way home, I spied a light morph ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK hunting over 6 1\/2 Station Road Sanctuary. It was only my 3rd RLHA of the season, and my first decent look; the bird was kind enough to circle directly overhead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
~ It the first time I’ve seen this bird in a good long while. Leucistic Red-tailed Hawk in Warwick, NY 12\/23\/18.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

With raptors on my mind, I decided to head up to the Shawangunk Grasslands in the evening. It was good to see Ken McDermott and also Justin Schmidt, who I hadn’t seen in who-knows-how-long. The place is absolutely loaded with Northern Harriers – it’s hard to put a number on it, but I’d say at least 15 or so. The Short-eared owls came up just as it was getting dark; my best count was 7 of them. They put on pretty good show, in spite of the fading light, and it was really good to see and hear them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
~This is a good looking bird. Light morph ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK at 6 1\/2 Station Road Sanctuary, 12\/23\/18.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
~It’s a party! Black Vultures going to town on a deer carcass, Warwick, NY 12\/23\/18.~ <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I spent much of the past couple of days running around Orange County in hopes of adding a bird or two to my 2018 list. My most likely candidates are Cackling Goose, which I can’t believe I haven’t had this year, and Winter Wren, which is a bird that apparently hates me very much. I … Continue reading “A Good Day For Raptors, 12\/23\/18”<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i3kT-2iK","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8850","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=8850"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8859,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8850\/revisions\/8859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}