{"id":289,"date":"2009-05-01T22:06:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-02T03:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/?p=289"},"modified":"2009-05-01T22:06:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-02T03:06:00","slug":"a-summer-tanager-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/?p=289","title":{"rendered":"A Summer Tanager Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Summer Tanager has been singing in the woods often since its arrival in mid April, and the <span style=\"font-style:italic;\">pik-a-tuk<\/span> calls of a pair frequently lace through the leaves of the trees around the house, but I hadn\u2019t been able to see one until today. This morning after breakfast, the rumors continued. Through the kitchen window I saw movement in the big, floppy green leaves of the white oak branches that hang over the deck and went outside \u2013 and could hear the <span style=\"font-style:italic;\">pik-a-tuk<\/span> calls and see the rustling movement as birds moved through the foliage, but they remained mostly hidden still, moving further and further away. <\/p>\n<p>It was late in the morning as I walked up the driveway toward the mailbox \u2013 when my mind was on something else entirely and I least expected it \u2013 when a male Summer Tanager appeared right in front of me, perched on a low branch of a pecan tree. It sat there, calm and quiet, stretched out in its typical, rather low posture, giving me a beautiful close-up view, deep blushing-red all over, with darker, shadowed red wings and long, heavy bill. The feathers on his crown were fluffed into a crest.<\/p>\n<p>A little further up the driveway, in accidental contrast to the sturdy, handsome, deliberate Tanager, a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird hovered like a whisper, low over a carpet of tiny, low-growing wildflowers that spread in a yellow-spotted cloud over an open stretch of the yard. Many of the flowers have gone to fluffy seeds, like dandelions, and she was gathering the fluff. <\/p>\n<p>It was a warm, sunny, perfect May Day with a soft blue sky thickly scattered with loose white clouds, and lots of birdsong and activity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Summer Tanager has been singing in the woods often since its arrival in mid April, and the pik-a-tuk calls of a pair frequently lace through the leaves of the trees around the house, but I hadn\u2019t been able to see one until today. This morning after breakfast, the rumors continued. Through the kitchen window [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}