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Astrophotography Birding Photography

Another Life Bird

Today I got a message from Tim Burkhardt to let me know that a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper had been found near Dateland. That is about 60 miles from where I am. A Sharp-tailed Sandpiper is definitely worth a drive. I headed out and got there in time to meet some other birders who pointed out exactly where it was along with seven Least Sandpipers. I quickly took a few photos and then got to talking with the others. As we watched the shorebirds all flushed and flew a few hundred yards and landed again. A few minutes later, someone thought they heard the Sharp-tailed Sandpiper fly overhead. It must have been it because we never saw it again. I got there just in the nick of time, if I had stopped anywhere along the way I would have missed it. I would have liked to get some better photos but that’s the way it goes sometimes. More birders were showing up only to be disappointed.

Sharp-tailed Sandpiper with Least Sandpipers. Sharp-tailed Sandpiper breeds in the boggy tundra of northeast Asia and winters in south-east Asia and Australia. In North America it is a rare migrant, usually in fall and usually along west coast. ABA life bird #605.
I couldn’t pass up this nice shot of a male Gambel’s Quail.
Greater Roadrunner nicely showing the zygodactyl toe pattern as it runs. The birds leave a distinctive track.
This might be the best Mars photo I will ever get with my current equipment. Olympus Mons is a little below center on the right edge. I stacked about 13,000 frames from 30,000 frames of video taken over four minutes (software selects the best frames for stacking). Four minutes is about as long as one can take video and stack before the planet rotation starts to blur detail. I’m pretty happy with this. Taken last night at about 11 PM.