For the past several days, I’ve been lugging the 500 f4 with a 1.4 teleconverter (700mm focal length) on a tripod. Why? It is so heavy that I don’t like to carry it much, like I used to do. But, I wanted some better images of the Varied Thrush and the Rufous-backed Robin and 400mm focal length just isn’t enough. I’ve had some luck with the Varied Thrush but the Rufous-backed Robin has been hard to find. While carrying that combo around, I’ve had some other good photo opportunities and the results are so good, I will probably keep using the 500 f4, for awhile at least.
I now have lots of nice images of the Varied Thrush. Eastern Phoebe getting a drink. Female Red-shafted Flicker feeding on palm berries. And a male doing the same. This coyote has been eating palm berries too, off the ground. It spends a lot of time around the pond at the golf course. Here it is again, looking for trouble or maybe just looking something to eat beside palm berries.The coyote would find this a tasty meal if it could catch it. This is a Botta’s Pocket Gopher, the only species of pocket gopher found here. I just happened to see it pushing dirt out of its burrow. A hybrid Red-naped/Red-Breasted Sapsucker. A typical Red-naped Sapsucker would have a black band under the red throat, while a Red-breasted would much more red on the head and breast. Female Cassin’s Finch getting a drink from a puddle.
All of the photos shown above were taken with the Canon 500 f4 lens with a 1.4 teleconverter. As always, right click on an image to open in a new tab for a larger image.
The last week has just been fabulous for birding. It seems like everyday something new shows up. Being in Arizona makes it seem even more exciting because there are lots of birders who will travel to see birds. Take a Herring Gull for example, in South Dakota a pretty easy bird at the right time of year, here in the Sonoran Desert, a rarity. Today I had two of them, along with a Brown Pelican, two or maybe three Heermann’s Gulls, a couple of dozen Bonaparte’s Gulls, and a California Gull along with a bunch of Ring-billed Gulls. As the Arizona birders say, any gull is a good gull in Pima County. The reason for all this bird movement is the weather, of course. A strong front came through last night and today was very windy, with SSW winds blowing up to 35 mph, straight up from the Sea of Cortez.
I was just about to leave this morning when I took one last look and was amazed to see this Brown Pelican coming in for a landing. Brian Nicholas texted me yesterday to let me know someone had seen one flying along I-8 at Gila Bend, he thought it might come this way. Is this the same bird? Who knows. One of the Heermann’s Gulls that was here today, in late afternoon light. For awhile all the celebrities were together, Brown Pelican, 2 Heermann’s Gulls, and a Herring Gull, the gull on the right is a Ring-billed Gull. One of the Herring Gulls. I’ve never seen this species in Arizona before, today I saw two. Some of the birders who came today. Yesterday afternoon I got more photos of the Varied Thrush, this time with the 500 f4 and a 1.4 TC, for 700mm focal length. Unfortunately, it was cloudy and gloomy so I didn’t have very good light. Still, I think this is the best photo of Varied Thrush I have so far. I took more photos of Black-throated Gray Warblers today, getting some really nice ones. Pretty hard to beat a warbler photo like this!
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This afternoon I got the best photo I’ve ever taken of a Rufous-backed Robin. The Varied Thrush is still here too. The good birds here are also attracting birders. Mark Otnes, who has moved to Tucson from North Dakota, came out this morning. I have been meeting more birders from Arizona and some from California this fall than ever.
Rufous-backed Robin at the golf course pond. Light was nice, I had to crop more than I like but it still looks pretty good. This species is very skittish and hard to approach. Why is its mouth open? Because it is hot, temperature was hovering around 100F this afternoon, record breaking heat again. Varied Thrush eating an earthworm. Another Eastern Phoebe has appeared, this one is at the golf course. This is NGC 772, the Fiddlehead Galaxy. I will need to get a lot more time in on this galaxy before it will look very good. It is twice the size of the Milky Way Galaxy, but it is so far away (130 million light years) it appears small and faint.
The run on good birds just gets better. Today I found a Varied Thrush at the golf course. I got the best photos I’ve ever taken of this species. Quite a few people from Tucson and Phoenix came to see it. Also found a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and a Summer Tanager, both are the first ones I’ve ever seen around Ajo. And to top it off, a Fox Sparrow, which I have seen here several times but still pretty rare for the Sonoran Desert.
As always, right click on a photo and open in a new tab to see a larger image.
Female Varied Thrush at the Ajo Country Club. Best photos I’ve ever taken of this species!Not sure what it is feeding on, but it was picking up things under a Eucalyptus tree. I have lots more photos, this is all I will post for now. Juvenile female Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, this species does not acquire adult plumage until late winter, as opposed to the Red-naped Sapsucker, which is well into adult plumage by now. Here’s a juvenile male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker I photographed today. Summer Tanager. This appears to be an eastern female type. Fox Sparrow. I think it is a Slate-colored Fox Sparrow.
It has been a busy few days, mostly due to a Lapland Longspur that showed up at the sewage ponds. In South Dakota, one can see thousands of Lapland Longspurs during some winters and nearly always some in most winters, but in Arizona one is a big deal. I first saw the bird on Saturday afternoon and got the word out. Sunday was a busy day with birders coming in to find it. Some succeeded, some didn’t. It was not a cooperative bird and stayed too far out for any good photographs.
Lapland Longspur at the Ajo Sewage Ponds. Very tough bird to get any good photos of. Perhaps the most amazing thing I saw on Sunday was this bat. I first saw something small swimming toward shore very rapidly. Now this is not something one typically sees at the pond. I couldn’t tell what it was till it came to the edge and scurried up the fabric liner. It was a bat! I guess it must have trying to get a drink, got too low and couldn’t escape the water. I know now that bats can swim very well. This is a free-tailed bat of unknown species (see the long tail). It was fairly large so I’m guessing a Big Free-tailed Bat or a Western Mastiff Bat. Even more surprising was how quickly it was able to fly off. According to my bat book, most if not all free-tailed bats cannot take off with out a considerable drop-off height under them. But this one did, even when wet. Perhaps it was due to the steep slope it was on. I was able to get a couple of very poor photos. The tail and large ears are evident. I found this Harris’s Hawk feeding on a rodent. There were two more waiting for some of the food. The bird looks normal from this side but….It is missing its left eye. It looks like the wound is still draining. Apparently it still able to hunt. Here’s a photo with the other two Harris’s Hawks. They are both smaller the the one-eyed hawk.
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.
Birding has been pretty good here. Most of the desert is very dry so the areas with water or that are watered, like the city parks and the golf course, have been active. It has really cooled down with the passage of a cold front and that has brought in more birds too. I had to turn on the heater last night and probably will again tonight. The big excitement today was a Ross’s Goose that appeared on the Ajo sewage ponds. Apparently this is a first record for Ajo, according to Ebird, and the first in Pima County this year. Two birders from Tucson, both of whom are doing a Pima County Big Year, came out here to get it.
Ross’s Goose at the Ajo Sewage Ponds. Here’s an interesting sequence of photos. This Red-naped Sapsucker was feeding on palm berries. I think of this species as a shy and retiring type of bird but I learned that this is not necessarily the case. A Gila Woodpecker came in to feed and landed close to the sapsucker. These are much larger birds than sapsuckers. I happened to be focused on the sapsucker when the action started. Right now the sapsucker is saying “Hey bub, this is my space”. Fast action, the sapsucker moved before the camera could refocus so it is blurry but look at how the sapsucker goes for the throat. The larger Gila Woodpecker didn’t even fight back, it just left.
I left Granite Gap this morning. Last night I spent a few hours photographing Mars since the “seeing” was forecast to be good and now Olympus Mons is on the right side of the planet. I figured I better try it because the weather is going to change, the jet stream will dip far south and that means the “seeing” will be pretty bad for a while. The results were OK but I hope for better later this month. On my way to Ajo I stopped at the Ina Street bridge over the Santa Cruz River to see if I could find the Northern Jacana. It only took about 10 minutes to do that and take some photos. I got into the campground at Ajo around 4 PM. It was 97 F. but this is the supposed to be the last day of hot weather. I hope so.
As always, right click on an image and open in a new tab to see it displayed at a larger size.
Northern Jacana. The light was terrible, midday glare and I could not get very close to the bird so all I got were some documentation photos. ABA area life bird #604. Extremely long toes allow it to walk on emergent vegetation. Northern Jacana is a very rare visitor to the United States, only in south Texas and southeast Arizona. The Ghost Nebula is starting to look better with two more hours. Mars from last night. The light area in the top center is Olympus Mons.
I’m still here at Granite Gap. No break in the heat out in the Sonoran Desert. That’s OK because this is a great place for astrophotography and nights are currently moonless. Every night is good, clear, usually no wind, dark. Compared to South Dakota, this is great for astro. Up there I can only wish for a good night or two during the new moon period. Yesterday I put quite a bit of time in on Sage Thrashers trying for a better shot of them eating juniper berries.
Finally, I got a good shot of a Sage Thrasher eating juniper berries. Once they get used to me sitting there, they will come out in the open, but it takes awhile. It is too bad that branch is covering the tail, but nothing I can do about it. This is M15, the Pegasus Cluster. Located, as one would suspect from the name, in the constellation Pegasus. M15 is about 33,600 light years from Earth, and is an estimated 175 light-years in diameter. It is one of the oldest star clusters known, at around 12 billion years. The Cocoon Nebula. I have done this before but it is quite small and by using the C8, it looks much more impressive. Located in Cygnus, it is is a stellar nursery where star-formation is ongoing. M33, Triangulum Galaxy, which I have done many times with the 500 f4 lens. This image was done with the C8. The galaxy is nearly too big to get it framed but it does fit.
As always, right click on any image to open in a new tab if you want to see it at full size.
I’ve been at this campsite in Granite Gap since last Thursday. So far, not one person or vehicle has come by on this road. The highway (Highway 80) is only a few hundred yards away but traffic is light and the road into the BLM land is gated, so I suppose that deters most people. Nights are getting darker now that the full moon is past and I did a few hours of astrophotography last night. Otherwise, I’ve been hiking and reading. There has been a surprising variety of birds here. I saw one Hermit Warbler, a species usually associated with forested areas. This is mostly desert here, with a few small Gambel Oak and junipers in the rocky slopes, so not typical habitat for birds like Hermit Warbler. This morning I saw a Vaux’s Swift fly by. There is a mountain lion roaming around too, I’ve seen the tracks in several locations, from the size of the tracks I’d say a large male.
Bewick’s Wren having arachnid for breakfast. Cliff Chipmunk, the only species of chipmunk in this area. This one was in the yard at the George Walker House. Not a very good photo but here is the Hermit Warbler. Young male Rufous Hummingbird, photo taken out the back window of the Scamp. I see this Sage Thrasher all the time but it has been difficult to photograph. Here it is photographed between some juniper branches. Elephant’s Trunk Nebula, from last night. I want to add a lot more photons to this tonight.
