I’m back in Pierre. Actually, I’ve been here over a week now. The first few days were cold and wet but pretty good for birding, as lots of migrants were forced to land. As it was in Arizona, rain is needed here too. On the way up here, I stopped in a BLM campground near Datil, New Mexico. It is the Datil Well Campground and I plan to spend more time there on the way back to Arizona. Very nice area for astrophotography and the birding is pretty good too. I had read about this campground before but the reviews all said there was no phone service/internet. However, I found that some campsites do have service, good enough for email, news and weather, anyway.
A Black-chinned Hummingbird at Datil Well Campground, New Mexico. A Glossy Ibis at the Hyde WPA, near Pierre, SD. A Semipalmated Plover and a Piping Plover, side by side, Hyde WPA. My best bird of late, a Whimbrel at Hyde WPA. I got a text from Kenny Miller this afternoon letting me know he had found this bird. I headed up there and it was still present! A South Dakota life bird and a new Hughes County life bird as well. I have chased after Whimbrels in South Dakota a few times and they were always gone when I got there. I now have 370 species on my South Dakota life list. This is a lousy photo due to the distance, but I have lots of good photos of Whimbrels at the LINK.
It is sure good to see lots of birds again! I’ve been at Patton’s Hummingbird Center in Patagonia three times now and today is the first time I saw any Violet-crowned Hummingbirds. Apparently the numbers are down. I discovered that there are three feeders on the property (in the northwest corner) that do have Violet-crowned Hummingbirds. I never saw any on the rest of the property. The place is alive with other birds, too many species to list here. Lots of birders too.
I think I will leave tomorrow and drive to Silver City. I could stay here a long time but it is time to head north. Had a nice rain yesterday and the plant response to it was rapid, things are greening up. There was a dusting of snow on the Santa Ritas but it didn’t last long.
Violet-crowned HummingbirdNot as close but I like the perch better! I got very close to this male Ladder-backed Woodpecker.A Greater Pewee in the Empire Gulch at Las Cienegas. I’ve never seen one away from the mountains. Obviously a migrant on its way to mountains, where the species nests.
I left Ajo on Sunday morning and drove to the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area, near Sonoita. I’ve stayed here many times, it is free, quiet, and usually good birding. Like most everywhere else in Arizona, it is very dry. There is still water in the spring though and the cottonwoods are leafed out and green. The uplands are dry and brown. Had a nice rain this afternoon and now the forecast is for a low of 35F tonight! I would not be surprised to see some snow on the mountains in the morning.
Today Mark Otnes and I birded around Patagonia Lake where we had some good luck with a Least Tern.
I haven’t photographed Gila Woodpeckers for a long time, they are very common. But, this was a shot I couldn’t pass up. A Least Tern at Patagonia Lake State Park. We saw it flying around the lake several times but then it landed on the beach. The tern let us walk up very close. I took nearly 200 photos as it preened and rested. More of the same. It is always nice to get photos of birds doing something beside just resting. A Black Phoebe at the Patton’s Hummingbird Center.
As always, right click and open in a new tab to see a larger version.
A couple of days ago, while birding in my warbler hotspot, I came around a bend and suddenly caught the eyes of a Bobcat looking at me from a big mesquite tree. It was close but it just stayed there and watched me. I took some photos and backed away. Later I came back and it was gone.
At the ponds, the latest excitement has been two Semipalmated Sandpipers, a Red-breasted Merganser and two Red-necked Phalaropes.
The Bobcat. It was laying on a horizontal trunk of a big mesquite. All I could see was its head. One of two Red-necked Phalaropes at the Ajo sewage ponds. It is really hard to get good photos at this site, which is too bad, because it does attract a lot of good birds. A lot of Vaux’s Swift have moved in. I keep trying for good shots but it is very hard. This isn’t too bad, but still a large crop, which really reduces detail. I have a lot that are much worse though!
One of the main reasons I’m still here is I wanted to get in a few sessions of wide angle astro while I’m still at 32 degrees north latitude. This gives me the best opportunities for things in the core of the Milky Way. Tonight the moon sets around 3 AM, so from now on out it really won’t be worth getting up in the early morning.
As far as birding news, a Red-breasted Merganser turned up on the sewage ponds. Brian Nicholas came out for it and while he was here we found 2 Semipalmated Sandpipers, pretty rare for this area.
So what next? I suppose I will head east and maybe stop for a few days somewhere in southeast Arizona. The weather still looks nice for the foreseeable future.
The Blue Horsehead Nebula. A faint reflection nebula in Scorpio, it is large enough to fill the frame at 200mm focal length. The dust reflects blue light from bright stars in part of this interstellar dust cloud. Both this image and the image below were shot at f2.8, gathering light 2-4 times faster than I can with longer focal lengths.
Rho Ophiuchi Nebula Complex in Scorpio. It has been a long time since I’ve done this particular scene. For this image I used a Zeiss 135mm f2 lens and tracking was done on the Losmandy G11. Using this arrangement, I can dither with the autoguider and it really makes a big difference. This is by far the best image I’ve created of the Rho Ophiuchi Nebula Complex.
As always, right click on the image and open in a new tab/window to see a larger version.
The Ford dealership couldn’t find anything wrong with the truck. They ran all kinds of tests, adjusted fuel settings but nothing major. The check engine light is off and that is good. They only billed me $100 after working on it all morning. I was expecting a lot more. The NAPA in Ajo wanted to replace all the O2 sensors (there are 4 of them) and that would have cost between $500 and $1000. I am glad I waited. Ford thinks it may have been a fuel problem of some type. That makes sense, it happened just a few minutes after filling it up at the Shell station in Ajo.
The moon is getting brighter and staying up longer but I still put in a full night of astro last night. I stayed up all night, mostly because I wanted to image the Trifid Nebula, M20, with the C8. At this latitude, M20 rises to nearly 35 degrees above the horizon, which is still pretty low but in South Dakota I would lose another 10 degrees. M20, at about 20 arc minutes diameter, is just the right size for the C8 at 1200mm focal length.
Here it is, M20, the Trifid Nebula. It is found in the core of the Milky Way Galaxy, rising in the early morning hours. It would look a lot better if it got higher in the sky but this is the best I can do. UPDATED: I added another hour to it Saturday night. While waiting for M20 I worked on a few other things. This is an image of The Eyes, in Markarian’s Chain, in Virgo. The largest, irregularly shaped galaxy is NGC4438. If you’ve ever watched the movie Interstellar, this galaxy is noted in Murphy Cooper’s notebook when she is is recording the Morse code from the watch. Apparently it is the galaxy that was accessed through the worm hole in the movie. Also known as Arp 120, The Eyes are about 55 million light years distant from Earth. I accumulated another hour of exposure on this, Arp 286. It is looking better.
The weather has been a little on the hot side but not too bad. My opportunities for astrophotography have been limited due to clouds and wind. Still no rain at all. The few areas that have got some water (mostly due to being watered or from runoff from paved streets) have been producing some birds. Tomorrow I have an appointment at Jones Ford in Buckeye to see what I need to do about the check engine light. I hope that doesn’t take too long.
M88, a spiral galaxy in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. I would like to put more time in this but it looks that will have to wait. This galaxy group is known at Arp 286 (Arp is the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, named after Halton Arp, the astronomer who developed it). The largest galaxy in the image is NGC 5566. It is the largest galaxy in Virgo but is so far away it appears small, even for the C8. Distance from Earth is about 65 million light years. I had to crop a lot but it still looks pretty good. NGC 3521, also known as the Bubble Galaxy. The large area of nebulosity surrounding the galaxy is from stars that have been torn out of the galaxy and dwarf galaxies that collided millions of years ago. A Sora I found at the golf course. It was right out in the open, very unusual for a Sora. A very cooperative male Hermit Warbler I found this morning. My prize bird for the day!Another view of the same Hermit Warbler.
I would like to leave pretty soon, it has been getting up near 100F yesterday and today. It should cool down now for a few days and that’s good because the truck has developed a problem, the check engine light came on. At NAPA they did a diagnostic that said it was an O2 sensor. NAPA can’t do it till week and I called the Ford dealer in Buckeye and they can’t do it till next Tuesday. So, I’m stuck. I can drive it to town and around the area, but if it gets worse I will have to park it and have it towed in, so I’m limiting the driving. No more driving around at night, that’s for sure!
I’ve managed a little astrophotography, but most nights I’ve been out photographing bats or looking for snakes. Here’s the Sombrero Galaxy with the C8, first time with guiding. The Silver Streak Galaxy and neighbors. These galaxies are in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. A very sharp shot of a Yuma Myotis getting a drink. The bat activity at Valentine Well has really dropped off but there are still quite a few of the smaller bats. One of the few bat photos I’ve taken with the wings down. The Great Horned Owls at the golf course are successfully raising their young. Light was pretty bad but it turned out OK. Another angle on the nest with better light. A Nashville Warbler at the golf course. Vermilion Flycatcher. It is hard to pass up a good shot!
I’ve been going out to Valentine Well every night. Last night it was very slow so I guess I hit a peak period for awhile. Bats only tripped the trigger 5 times, on my best night the trigger was tripped 68 times. I will try again in a few days, tonight I’m going snake hunting.
I saw fresh Mountain Lion tracks at the well yesterday, they weren’t there the day before! I was hoping it would come back for a drink but I didn’t see it.
This is my setup. I use a 35mm lens on a Canon 7DMII. The laser trigger is set up to cover as much of the tank as possible, it is limited by the length of the cable to connect to the camera. I can buy a wireless transmitter that would help a lot with this issue. For this small tank, I can get by without it. The receiver/trigger is behind the lens and the laser is on the right. I blocked about a foot of the tank with a 2×4 to limit the open water a bit. The laser beam has to be low, just barely above the edge of the tank otherwise the bats tend to fly under it or trigger it after they are out of range.I posted this on iNaturalist and the consensus is that this is a Yuma Myotis. This is one the best bat photos I’ve taken so far! For my best photos, I take the time to remove the metal rim in the background, a tedious process.I wish I could have got the whole bat! A Townsend’s Big-eared Bat, very sharp!Myotis sp. This isn’t as sharp but I like the wing hitting the water.
I went back to Valentine Well last night. I got set up for an evening of bat photography and tried a little different arrangement, hoping to get shots of bats flying straight toward the camera. I had little idea that this would be the best night of bat shooting I’ve ever had! I got at least three species and maybe four. Best of all, I finally got a good shot of a Townsend’s Big-eared Bat. I got one last spring but it was out of focus just enough to make it a photo I didn’t really want to show anyone. Anyway, it was fun and I will back out there tonight. I have some ideas on how improve and will see if they work.
My Townsend’s Big-eared Bat, coming up off the water just after getting a drink. I could be a little sharper but it is pretty good! Pallid Bat, I got three pretty sharp images. I like this one for the reflection on the water. Another Myotis sp., maybe a California or Small-footed Myotis. Pallid Bat. As always, right click on an image and open in a new tab to see a larger version.
