{"id":6891,"date":"2012-12-23T11:42:32","date_gmt":"2012-12-23T19:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=6891"},"modified":"2012-12-23T14:15:19","modified_gmt":"2012-12-23T22:15:19","slug":"tis-the-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=6891","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Tis the season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Tis the season of family gatherings. &#8216;Tis the season of road trips. &#8216;Tis the season of watching nature from the window of a car.<\/p>\n<p>On this season&#8217;s jaunt, only birds were seen (no mammals)&#8212;seven pictures below.<\/p>\n<p>Irruptive birds are not regular seasonal migrants, but ones that come south only every few years. On this drive, I saw three irruptive species, all finches. The first to be seen was also the least common: White-winged Crossbills.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6892\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/whitewingedcrossbill121221s.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Only seen a bit more frequently is the Pine Grosbeak. As with the other finches, it was seen consuming gravel from the roads (grit apparently aids in digestion).<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6893\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/pinegrosbeak121221s.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The final finch seen feeding on the road was, curiously, the most frequently seen one: the Pine Siskin.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6894\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/siskins121222s.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Four Bald Eagles were seen, but this one was the only sub adult.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6896\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/eagle121222s.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A Pileated Woodpecker was seen hunting on a tree below one of the eagles.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6895\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/pileatedwoodpecker121222s.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This is one of two Red-tailed Hawks seen.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6898\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/redtailedhawk121221s.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Nearly missed, because it was so small, was a Pygmy Owl.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-6897\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/pygmyowl121221s.jpg\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &#8216;Tis the season of family gatherings. &#8216;Tis the season of road trips. &#8216;Tis the season of watching nature from the window of a car. On this season&#8217;s jaunt, only birds were seen (no mammals)&#8212;seven pictures below. Irruptive birds are &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=6891\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6891"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6902,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6891\/revisions\/6902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}