{"id":105302,"date":"2021-12-21T05:51:18","date_gmt":"2021-12-21T12:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=105302"},"modified":"2021-12-21T13:28:44","modified_gmt":"2021-12-21T20:28:44","slug":"the-new-aba-bird-of-the-year-the-burrowing-owl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2021\/12\/21\/the-new-aba-bird-of-the-year-the-burrowing-owl\/","title":{"rendered":"The New ABA Bird Of The Year – The Burrowing Owl"},"content":{"rendered":"

As of two days ago the Burrowing Owl is the American Birding Association’s Bird of the Year for 2022<\/a><\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n

The ABA chooses a species to be Bird of the Year based on the following criteria:<\/p>\n

‘We aren\u2019t seeking the rarest, most endangered, or most sought after species, nor do we seek overexposed \u201cgreeting card\u201d birds. We aim to pick species that are charismatic and accessible enough to be spark birds, but that also remain favorites for those who have been into birding for years. On top of that, we want a conservation story to tell.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The Burrowing Owl has been described as “arguably the world\u2019s most charismatic bird species” and they’re definitely a conservation story so it seems to me that the ABA has made an excellent choice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I first learned of the pick almost immediately after it was made on December 19 when one of my Facebook followers posted a link to my blog post featuring a photo of these young Burrowing Owl siblings and used it to announce the ABA’s decision to her FB followers. It was news to me too.<\/p>\n

Followers of Feathered Photography have seen this photo before (more than once) but how could I not use it again in a post honoring Burrowing Owls? In fact, at one point or another I’ve posted all five of these photos in the past but I figure that several of them will be new to many, if not most, of my readers. And some folks won’t have seen any of them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Burrowing Owls as a species are charismatic and loveable but those traits are exaggerated in the juveniles. All of the owls in these photos are juvies.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Another of my most popular Burrowing Owl photos. Who doesn’t love a curious, parallaxing juvie standing on one foot?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This youngster always reminds me of those videos we see of goofy cops directing traffic. Another reason this shot is close to my heart is that this bird is obviously a left-winger (I give my friend Jim DeWitt credit for that line).<\/p>\n

So, congratulations to the Burrowing Owl and to the ABA for a superb choice for Bird of the Year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The end.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PS – Happy winter solstice!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As of two days ago the Burrowing Owl is the American Birding Association’s Bird of the Year for 2022. (5 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,334,365,395],"tags":[6064,31,510,6065,62,2371,311,6066],"class_list":["post-105302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-burrowing-owls","category-miscellaneous","tag-aba-bird-of-the-year-2022","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-athene-cunicularia","tag-bird-of-the-year-criteria","tag-burrowing-owl","tag-parallaxing","tag-utah-2","tag-winter-solstice"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/burrowing-owl-0144-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-roq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105302"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105334,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105302\/revisions\/105334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}