{"id":2107,"date":"2009-03-01T20:46:19","date_gmt":"2009-03-02T03:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/?p=2107"},"modified":"2021-12-19T17:32:55","modified_gmt":"2021-12-19T22:32:55","slug":"grasshopper-sparrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/01\/grasshopper-sparrow\/","title":{"rendered":"Grasshopper Sparrow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Marion and I spent this gloriously summer-like St. David&#8217;s Day along the lower Santa Cruz. It&#8217;s not winter down there any more, and the great raptor shows of the cold season are done with; but we still tallied a fine adult <strong>Peregrine Falcon<\/strong>, several <strong>Harris&#8217;s Hawks<\/strong>, four <strong>Northern Harriers <\/strong>(including two dazzling silver males), and small numbers of scattered <strong>American Kestrels <\/strong>and <strong>Red-tailed Hawks<\/strong>. We also saw three owl species, beginning with a saguaro-roosting <strong>Western Screech-Owl<\/strong>; the &#8220;secret&#8221; site in Marana turned up no fewer than six <strong>Burrowing Owls<\/strong>, and farther north we discovered a pair of <strong>Great Horned Owls <\/strong>at a big stick nest&#8211;while the obviously dispossessed <strong>Common Ravens <\/strong>were working on a new effort of their own on the other side of the tamarisk!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3593\/3320671857_9bc5ae07e9.jpg?v=0\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3593\/3320671857_9bc5ae07e9.jpg?v=0\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sparrows were as scarce as raptors, it seemed, but we had a fine surprise in Marana. We were watching <strong>Vesper <\/strong>and <strong>Savannah Sparrows<\/strong> along a weedy fenceline when suddenly a little buffy blur blew in and perched&#8211;a <strong>Grasshopper Sparrow<\/strong>, I think the first I&#8217;d ever seen in Pima County.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3580\/3320670237_7b755c3029.jpg?v=0\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3580\/3320670237_7b755c3029.jpg?v=0\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The bird was remarkably obliging, giving us lengthy views of the sort usually to be counted on only from singing individuals.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3556\/3321657700_e85137620c.jpg?v=0\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3556\/3321657700_e85137620c.jpg?v=0\" alt=\"\" width=\"236\" height=\"252\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And cute as a button, too, especially head on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marion and I spent this gloriously summer-like St. David&#8217;s Day along the lower Santa Cruz. It&#8217;s not winter down there any more, and the great raptor shows of the cold season are done with; but we still tallied a fine adult Peregrine Falcon, several Harris&#8217;s Hawks, four Northern Harriers (including two dazzling silver males), and &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/01\/grasshopper-sparrow\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Grasshopper Sparrow&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2107"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11903,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107\/revisions\/11903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}