{"id":5375,"date":"2023-04-03T15:28:25","date_gmt":"2023-04-03T20:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/?p=5375"},"modified":"2023-04-13T12:47:24","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T17:47:24","slug":"common-loon-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/common-loon-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Common Loon Time, Early April 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2427\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/common-loon.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2427\" src=\"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/common-loon.jpg\" alt=\"Common Loon\" width=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2427\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2427\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Common Loon zipping past Montrose Point (click to see the larger version)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>We&#8217;ve been seeing Common Loons at Montrose for over a week. They start to appear in late March and remain regular through late April. Early April is about peak season for them. Sometimes they show up in the harbor, where they&#8217;re easy to admire and photograph on the water. More often we see them in flight over Lake Michigan or over the Point and always at a breakneck clip. The best way to describe a Common Loon is a missile with wings &ndash; pointed at the front, with a fast, powerful, and direct flight, like they&#8217;re in a hurry to get where they&#8217;re going. They look lethal on the wing; if one slammed into you, you probably wouldn&#8217;t survive. Double-crested Cormorants are similar in size and shape but aren&#8217;t as sleek and look ungainly compared to a loon. The nice thing about spring Common Loons is that they&#8217;re usually in beautiful breeding plumage when they make it to Chicago. From a distance this isn&#8217;t obvious but up close the white striping against the black neck stands out.<\/p>\n<p>If you visit Montrose in April, keep your head on a swivel and look up. A Common Loon may be flying over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;ve been seeing Common Loons at Montrose for over a week. They start to appear in late March and remain regular through late April. Early April is about peak season for them. Sometimes they show up in the harbor, where they&#8217;re easy to admire and photograph on the water. More often we see them in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[130,131],"class_list":["post-5375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring-bird-reports","tag-common-loon","tag-loons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5375"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5401,"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5375\/revisions\/5401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}