{"id":626,"date":"2015-02-15T22:09:41","date_gmt":"2015-02-16T03:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/?p=626"},"modified":"2015-02-15T22:09:41","modified_gmt":"2015-02-16T03:09:41","slug":"did-someone-say-cold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/2015\/02\/15\/did-someone-say-cold\/","title":{"rendered":"Did someone say &#8220;cold&#8221;?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With whatever the current digital version of &#8220;mercury&#8221; is dipping to an overnight low of 25 below*, and an expected daytime high tomorrow of only two degrees higher, I for one am not planning on venturing outside unless I absolutely have to. Even though tomorrow is <a title=\"Family Day FAQ (Ontario Ministry of Labour)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.labour.gov.on.ca\/english\/es\/faqs\/family.php\">Family Day<\/a>, a holiday of dubious provenance that I&#8217;ve lightly <a title=\"Family Day (Ricardiblog)\" href=\"http:\/\/ricardipus.blogspot.ca\/2008\/02\/family-day.html\">complained about before<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This prolonged cold snap is also having an effect on the local wildlife, it seems. Our local <a title=\"Cooper's Hawk - Cornell Lab of Ornithology\" href=\"http:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/guide\/coopers_hawk\/id\">Cooper&#8217;s Hawk<\/a> appeared yesterday, fluffing itself up against the cold while gobbling down a tasty meal to keep its metabolism ticking over nicely. I suspect the hapless victim was yet another <a title=\"Mourning Dove - Cornell Lab of Ornithology\" href=\"http:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/guide\/mourning_dove\/id\">Mourning Dove<\/a>, a species that seems to spend most of its time sitting still and pretending nothing&#8217;s going to eat it. I&#8217;ve long since given up keeping score, but since first appearing <a title=\"Lovey-dovey, part 2 (Ricardiblog)\" href=\"http:\/\/ricardipus.blogspot.ca\/2006\/08\/lovey-dovey-part-2.html\">some nine years ago or so<\/a>, the hawks are definitely winning. Mis-identified in that blog post as a female\u00a0<a title=\"Northern Harrier - Cornell Lab of Ornithology\" href=\"http:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/guide\/northern_harrier\/id\">Northern Harrier<\/a>, our backyard visitors all along have almost certainly been juvenile Cooper&#8217;s. Bloodthirsty things.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Get out of my face! by Richard Wintle, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ricardipus\/16540843812\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7319\/16540843812_4fc7879fc2.jpg\" alt=\"Get out of my face!\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>&#8220;Get lost! It&#8217;s mine!&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Cooper's Hawk, calling by Richard Wintle, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ricardipus\/16533961525\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7452\/16533961525_64640440c0.jpg\" alt=\"Cooper's Hawk, calling\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>&#8220;&#8230;and I&#8217;m going to squawk about it!&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Cooper's Hawk, eating by Richard Wintle, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ricardipus\/16533961785\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7380\/16533961785_bdd15d375f.jpg\" alt=\"Cooper's Hawk, eating\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>&#8220;Tastes like chicken!<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Guilty Face by Richard Wintle, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ricardipus\/16345312989\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7286\/16345312989_2e0bbf3f48.jpg\" alt=\"Guilty Face\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>&#8220;Who, me? I didn&#8217;t do nuffink, guv&#8217;nor!&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>*Those are Celsius temperatures. For US-based readers, that&#8217;s minus 13 Fahrenheit. Still pretty cold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bitterly cold temperatures and wildlife in the backyard. Sounds to me like a recipe for staying indoors. <a href=\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/2015\/02\/15\/did-someone-say-cold\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,9],"tags":[148,198,197,202,199,200],"class_list":["post-626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-photography","tag-backyard","tag-bird","tag-hawk","tag-photography","tag-wildlife","tag-winter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/wintle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}