I’ve actually been back almost two weeks now. I’ve been keeping busy chasing migrant birds. For a few days there were good numbers of migrants, I suppose it could be characterized as a fallout. The numbers of warblers were pretty amazing, but the diversity of species wasn’t that great. I’m hoping for an even better “fallout” later this week, when a cold front moves through.
I left Granite Gap this morning. I have been spending the nights photographing some galaxies and hiking and birding during the day. The weather has been far too windy most of the time and it makes astrophotography hard. I put all that gear away and now I am focusing on birds. I’m at Bosque del Apache NWR near Socorro, New Mexico. After spending the last 7 months in the Sonoran Desert, it is sure nice to see lots of water again! The refuge is full of birds, lots of shorebirds, ibis, herons, ducks, warblers and others. I didn’t do much birding today but tomorrow will be a full day.
I left Ajo last week and drove to Granite Gap, just across the border in New Mexico. I planned to stay here awhile and do some astro and that has been working out OK. Otherwise, I think it is drier here than the Ajo area. There is not much vegetation that is green. There is a herd of cattle on this BLM land and I’ve been watching them eat prickly pear cactus. There is no grass for them to eat.
Last month, I posted about the first quasar that I had ever knowingly photographed. My story was that while waiting for the galaxy NCG 4151 to rise high enough to capture two quasars, I spent a couple of hours photographing M97, the Owl Nebula. Well, today I was reading some posts on Cloudy Nights forums and found that there is an easy quasar by M97. I went back to my photos and sure enough, there it was. I have probably photographed lots of quasars and didn’t even know it. Now I have three different identified quasars.
The weather continues to be nice. Birding hasn’t been too exciting except for a pair of Forster’s Terns that appeared on the ponds one day. These are the first terns of any species I’ve ever seen on the Ajo sewage ponds. Astrophotography has been hit and miss with clouds and wind.
It is that time of year again, where there is so much to do I can’t decide what to do next. One result is I don’t get much sleep. I finally caught up on sleep last night.
I mentioned in my other post about quasars that there was another project I wanted to work on. This is it. This is one of those images I did just to see if I could do it. The Twin Quasar was discovered in 1979 and is the first gravitationally lensed object identified, thus proving Albert Einstein’s prediction from his General Theory of Relativity. Einstein thought that humans would never be able to actually observe this effect, but it has now been observed numerous times.
For a long time I’ve been thinking about trying to capture a quasar. I finally found out how to get a couple of them, by imaging a galaxy in Ursa Major, NGC 4151. Quasars are extremely bright young galaxies, at the edges of the universe, so they are far out there. I don’t know exactly how far these two are, but over a billion light years for sure. Here’s a good link to read more about quasars.
Here it is, March 2, the day of the new moon and all I get is clouds. I’ve only had two good nights for astrophotography so far. At least the area got a little rain, 1/4 to 1/2 inch around the area. The biggest bird excitement was a Laughing Gull at Lake Ajo. Some birders came over from Tucson and for at least one it was an Arizona life bird. I’ve never seen one in Arizona myself. This afternoon I was passing by the Kit Fox den and saw two of the foxes outside taking a nap.
As the title of this page may indicate, not much is going on. Some bird movement, mostly an increase in Sage Thrashers, is noted. The moon is approaching full phase now and of course it has been clear and calm every night. The weather has been warm, above 80 F. for the last few days. There is a group called the Boondockers that shows up here every winter. The campground was getting a bit crowded with them for the last couple of weeks but now most have left. It appears that Covid-19 has peaked in this area, according to the local weekly paper. Reported cases peaked at 74 the week before last, now it is dropping fast. I still remain Covid free.
