{"id":679,"date":"2008-09-13T04:38:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-13T04:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/?p=679"},"modified":"2014-10-01T03:47:29","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T03:47:29","slug":"16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/?p=679","title":{"rendered":"16"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/yellow-headed.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5245348210604827474\" style=\"FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/yellow-headed-202x300.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><span style=\"font-size:85%;\">That bit of early evening sunlight reflecting off this yellow-headed blackbird is what makes me like this otherwise terrible pic; the quality of light in North Dakota was magical and generous. Even the moonlight seemed to fill the prairie pot holes until they popped out like mirrors of the star-filled sky.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, I digress&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>These were my prairie life birds:<\/p>\n<p>Eared Grebe<br \/>Western Grebe<br \/>American White Pelican<br \/>Sharp-Tailed Grouse<br \/>Yellow Rail<br \/>American Avocet<br \/>Black Tern<br \/>Western Kingbird<br \/>Bank Swallow<br \/>Sedge Wren<br \/>Clay-colored Sparrow<br \/>Nelson&#8217;s Sharp-tailed Sparrow<br \/>Yellow-headed blackbird<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m still holding onto most of my North Dakota stories like precious little pebbles in the pocket of my favorite pair of jeans. Every now and again I pull one out and turn it over in my hand and decide if it&#8217;s polished enough for telling yet. Most aren&#8217;t, but I&#8217;m beginning to remember and still enjoy just sitting with those memories.<\/p>\n<p>Each of the birds on this very modest list has a story of its own; its own sweet memory. I&#8217;d forgotten, I think, how nice new life birds can be. A couple of them aren&#8217;t technically life birds for me, but I&#8217;m a little quirky about claiming life birds and would just as soon wait to check a bird off that list as not be able to really remember seeing it for the first time. These are all firmly set in my memory of a wonderful couple days spent wandering in the middle of nowhere.<\/p>\n<p>#16 in my <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/?p=770\"><span style=\"font-size:85%;\">38 by 39<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-size:85%;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That bit of early evening sunlight reflecting off this yellow-headed blackbird is what makes me like this otherwise terrible pic; the quality of light in North Dakota was magical and generous. Even the moonlight seemed to fill the prairie pot holes until they popped out like mirrors of the star-filled sky. Anyway, I digress&#8230; These &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/?p=679\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">16<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,10,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}