{"id":1196,"date":"2013-04-05T21:07:09","date_gmt":"2013-04-05T21:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/?p=1196"},"modified":"2013-04-05T21:07:09","modified_gmt":"2013-04-05T21:07:09","slug":"the-swallow-tailed-hawk-audubon-bird-of-the-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/2013\/04\/05\/the-swallow-tailed-hawk-audubon-bird-of-the-week\/","title":{"rendered":"The Swallow-tailed Hawk (Audubon &#8220;bird of the week&#8221;)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/files\/2013\/04\/IMG_2533.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1197\" src=\"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/files\/2013\/04\/IMG_2533-300x174.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"174\" srcset=\"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/files\/2013\/04\/IMG_2533-300x174.jpg 300w, http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/files\/2013\/04\/IMG_2533-1024x595.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>&#8220;They always feed on the wing.\u00a0 In calm and warm weather, they soar to an immense height, pursuing the large insects called <em>Musquito Hawks<\/em>, and performing the most singular evolutions that can be conceived, using their tail with an elegance of motion peculiar to themselves.\u00a0 Their principal food, however, is large grasshoppers, grass-caterpillars, small snakes, lizards, and frogs.\u00a0 They sweep close over the fields, sometimes seeming to alight for a moment to secure a snake, and holding it fast by the neck, carry it off, and devour it in the air.\u00a0 When searching for grasshoppers and caterpillars, it is not difficult to approach them under cover of a fence or tree.\u00a0 When one is then killed and falls to the ground, the whole flock comes over the dead bird, as if intent upon carrying it off.\u00a0 An excellent opportunity is thus afforded of shooting as many as may be wanted, and I have killed several of these Hawks in this manner, firing as fast as I could load my gun.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u2013J. J. Audubon, <em>Ornithological Biography<\/em>, I (1831), 369 [excerpted].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;They always feed on the wing.\u00a0 In calm and warm weather, they soar to an immense height, pursuing the large insects called Musquito Hawks, and performing the most singular evolutions that can be conceived, using their tail with an elegance of motion peculiar to themselves.\u00a0 Their principal food, however, is large grasshoppers, grass-caterpillars, small snakes, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,20,21,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1196"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1206,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions\/1206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}