{"id":8285,"date":"2019-04-05T23:09:28","date_gmt":"2019-04-06T06:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/matchgrun.com\/blog\/?p=8285"},"modified":"2019-04-05T23:09:34","modified_gmt":"2019-04-06T06:09:34","slug":"birds-westerly-creek-wk-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matchgrun.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/05\/birds-westerly-creek-wk-14\/","title":{"rendered":"Birds, Westerly Creek — wk 14"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Westerly Creek is one location that has a variety of bird life at this time of the year. This last weekend, we spent a couple of hours viewing and photographing birds along the creek. After arriving there, we immediately spotted a Double-Crested Cormorant swimming in the creek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"2304-0005-Cormorant-Swimming-Westerly-Creek\"
Cormorant Swimming, Westerly Creek.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cormorants frequently dive for food. They have to spread their wings to allow the water to flow off their wings. Typically, they do this when they get to dry land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"2304-0007-Cormorant-Spreading-Wings-Westerly-Creek-No-1\"
Cormorant, Spreading Wings, Westerly Creek, No 1.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I suspect that spreading wings is part of attracting mates during the breeding period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"2304-0011-Cormorant-Spreading-Wings-Reflection-Westerly-Creek\"
Cormorant Spreading Wings Reflection, Westerly Creek.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the image below, one can see the double crest on the sides of the bird’s face. This is a feature that only appears during the breeding season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"2304-0014-Double-Crested-Cormorant-Westerly-Creek\"
Double-Crested Cormorant, Westerly Creek.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As we walked along the creek, we heard the call of the Meadow Larks in the grassland. These birds have arrived back to the metro area for the Spring and Summer months. We were fortunate that this bird allowed us to get really close. With all the people making use of the open space around the creek, these birds are accustomed to people passing by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"2304-0043-Meadow-Lark-Westerly-Creek-No-1\"
Meadow Lark, Westerly Creek, No 1.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Angela also heard the call of a Say’s Phoebe, so we went looking for the bird. This bird was busy feeding on insects and returning to perch on the tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"2304-0048-Says-Phoebe-Westerly-Creek-No-1\"
Say’s Phoebe, Westerly Creek, No 1.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Here is another image that I made as the bird faced towards the afternoon sunlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"2304-0061-Says-Phoebe-Westerly-Creek-No-2\"
Say’s Phoebe, Westerly Creek, No 2.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In total, we saw about 20 species close to the creek. This included a flock of about 100 Red-Winged Blackbirds perched in a few closely spaced trees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Westerly Creek is one location that has a variety of bird life at this time of the year. This last weekend, we spent a couple of hours viewing and photographing birds along the creek. After arriving there, we immediately spotted a Double-Crested Cormorant swimming in the creek. Cormorants frequently dive for food. They have to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[498,1583,1582,506,1581,306,1370],"class_list":{"0":"post-8285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-project52","7":"tag-birds","8":"tag-breeding","9":"tag-cormorant","10":"tag-meadow-lark","11":"tag-says-phoebe","12":"tag-water","13":"tag-westerly-creek"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMatQ-29D","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/matchgrun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/matchgrun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/matchgrun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matchgrun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matchgrun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8285"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/matchgrun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8288,"href":"https:\/\/matchgrun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8285\/revisions\/8288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/matchgrun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matchgrun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matchgrun.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}