{"id":2535,"date":"2023-12-25T07:05:03","date_gmt":"2023-12-25T06:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/?p=2535"},"modified":"2023-12-23T11:05:48","modified_gmt":"2023-12-23T10:05:48","slug":"birding-in-spain-advent-calendar-december-25th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/birds-in-spain\/birding-in-spain-advent-calendar-december-25th\/","title":{"rendered":"Birding in Spain advent calendar December 25th"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Merry Christmas!<\/p>\n<p>Now why would you be reading this on Christmas Day?<\/p>\n<p><br \/>I called this image \u201cblood\u201d. It\u2019s an alert Goshawk (is there any other kind?) with a full crop and a blood-stained bill.<\/p>\n<p>The Goshawk is a mean, aggressive predator, a real bird of prey, a feathered <em>Velociraptor<\/em>. It\u2019s an image which doesn\u2019t appear to have much to do with the Christmas spirit, the message of \u201cLove and peace to all mankind\u201d, or anything close to that.<\/p>\n<p>Well, I could postulate that red is the colour of holly berries, and that holly has been a visible feature of this festive season in northern Europe for many years; or that red is the predominant colour of Santa Claus\u2019s outfit, the red of gift-wrapping paper, Christmas tree baubles and tinsel, and so on. I could, and that might be a nice way to end this advent calendar series. However, if I did I think I\u2019d be straying too far from what brought us all here in the first place: the birds.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Birds are beautiful<\/strong>. Birds can fly, soar, glide, swim, run, walk, float, climb, dive, hop, jump, dance and sing. And the beauty of birdwatching is that we can actually see the birds doing many of those things.<\/p>\n<p>In any other world birds would be impossible. But they exist \u2013 in this, our, world. Enjoy birds. Enjoy life.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2544\" style=\"width: 380px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2544\" data-attachment-id=\"2544\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/birds-in-spain\/birding-in-spain-advent-calendar-december-25th\/attachment\/advent-25-blood\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/advent-25-blood.gif?fit=600%2C394&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"600,394\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Blood\" data-image-description=\"&lt;p&gt;Advent Calendar Christmas Day Blood &amp;#8211; a festive Goshawk?&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Blood &amp;#8211; a festive Goshawk?&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/advent-25-blood.gif?fit=600%2C394&amp;ssl=1\" class=\" wp-image-2544\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/advent-25-blood.gif?resize=370%2C243&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Goshawk\" width=\"370\" height=\"243\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2544\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Blood &#8211; a festive Goshawk?<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote has-text-align-center is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p><strong> Bird, and be free <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Birding In Spain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Merry Christmas! Now why would you be reading this on Christmas Day? I called this image \u201cblood\u201d. It\u2019s an alert Goshawk (is there any other kind?) with a full crop and a blood-stained bill. The Goshawk is a mean, aggressive predator, a real bird of prey, a feathered Velociraptor. It\u2019s an image which doesn\u2019t appear [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds-in-spain"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7I752-ET","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2535"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2546,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535\/revisions\/2546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}