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Astrophotography Birding Uncategorized

Birding and Astro Update

It has been very typical Sonoran Desert winter weather, daytime highs in the 60’s and lows in the 40’s. Perfect, in my opinion. On New Year’s Day the forecast is for rain. I’ve been on a search for Black-chinned Sparrows, which I usually can find in the mountains around the area, but so far, I haven’t found any. The Ajo Mountain Loop Road in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is the best place to find them, but it is closed for repair until mid-January. I’ve been having some nice hikes though.

I was hiking on Child’s Mountain when I came to a large canyon, so I tried a Canyon Wren call. This one came right in. I get a thrill every time I can get a nice photo like this!
On my hike up the slopes of Black Mountain (searching for Black-chinned Sparrows) I found another wintering Gray Vireo.
A mother Javelina and her baby.
I had to try the Horsehead Nebula again. Good nights for astrophotography have been somewhat limited. The few I’ve had have been with the 500 f4 lens mounted on the Losmandy. Next round of astro will be with the C8.
The Jellyfish Nebula in Gemini. It has been a long time since I tried this one. It is a difficult object, very faint and in a rich star field. Some astrophotographers use software to remove the stars and artificial intelligence software to enhance the image. Images seen online that look really artificial are just that. AI software tends to add artifacts and other issues that I don’t really like. So, I avoid doing those things. This nebula, IC 443, is a huge supernova remnant. It is about 70 light years distant and from our perspective, larger than a full moon, but much too faint to see. The bright star in the upper right is Propus, also known as Tajat Prior, and also as η Geminorum.
One of my favorites, M45, the Pleiades.
This dark nebula is variously known as the Vulture Head, Baby Eagle Nebula, and officially LBN 777. It is located near the Pleiades.
Categories
Astrophotography Birding

Ajo CBC and Cold Weather

I know that the folks back in South Dakota aren’t going to have much sympathy for me here. But it has been pretty cold for this area, and it has been a long-lasting cold snap as well. The end is near though as a warming trend is finally coming. Daytime highs in the low 50’s will soon be in the upper 60’s and 70’s. The Ajo CBC was held on Friday, and I had my usual unit. A Spotted Towhee was probably the best bird for me, and I got the other two species of Towhees as well, Green-tailed and Canyon, all within 100 yards of each other. Another good find was a Canyon Wren, and I got some nice photos of that. Astrophotography has been slow and cold. Quite a few cloudy nights and the nights that were clear had heavy dew that later froze on surfaces.

Way back on December 7, Mars passed behind the full moon, a rare occultation of the red planet and a full moon. I had the C8 set up for it and this is what I got.
Here’s my Canyon Wren. It was singing a lot. Always nice to hear!
Not far away, a Rock Wren was wondering what all the commotion was about.
A female Northern Cardinal, I saw the male too but couldn’t get a good photo of it.
IC 405, the Flaming Star Nebula in the constellation Auriga. I imaged this nebula a long time ago. I like this image a lot better than the old ones I took. The brightest star in the nebula is AE Auriga, a runaway star. AE Auriga lights up the Flaming Star Nebula as it passes through the nebula at high speed.
IC 348 with the 500 f4. I tried the brightest part of this dark nebula with the C8 and liked the results so much I went for this wider-angle view of the area. Located on the edge of the Perseus Molecular Cloud, it is not far from the Pleiades and the Embryo Nebula.
Categories
Astrophotography Birding Photography

Coyote vs Bobcat

I’ve had two trail cams out at Highway Tank for a couple of weeks now. I am trying for the Mountain Lion that has left tracks there but so far, no luck with that. Here is a YouTube LINK to a video I captured that is described by the title to my post. I find it amazing that something like this would happen right in front of my camera. The cameras are still there so maybe I will have a lion to show soon. The weather has been very nice and I’m enjoying the warm days.

This is Highway Tank. The water level is dropping but should last most of winter even without any rain. When I first got to Ajo the water was about 2 feet higher.
A female Red-naped Sapsucker at a sap well in Bud Walker Park. As far as photography, it doesn’t get much better than this!
My final image of M33. Astrophotography is over for now until after the next full moon.
Here’s a large crop of the M33 image, this is NGC 604. Keep in mind that this is over 2.5 million light years away! The brightest stars are foreground stars in our galaxy. Some of those other bluish blobs are probably star clusters in M33.
Categories
Astrophotography Birding Photography

Thanksgiving Day Post

Happy Thanksgiving! I’ve been keeping busy. Birding, astrophotography, and hiking. Now I’m working on digging up 89 photos of butterflies for Gary Marrone’s 2nd Edition of The Butterflies of South Dakota. That will be a great book when it is published. Weather here has been cool but still pretty nice.

I found two Gray Vireos in the Darby Well area, first time I’ve seen Gray Vireos there for several years now.
I photographed this one capturing a leaf-footed bug.
A Hermit Thrush in Alamo Canyon.
A Verdin perching on flowering Condalia. I really like this one!
Male Northern Cardinal peeking out from the mesquite.
I’ve been adding more exposure to my Crab Nebula image, started this several years ago. I think there will be more coming.
Same with M33, Triangulum Galaxy. The giant nebula, NGC 604, is very clear in the lower left. Forty times the size of the Orion Nebula, it would outshine Venus if it were the same distance as the Orion Nebula. But it is almost 3 million light years away.
A very poor photo of a Varied Thrush, a very rare bird for this area. I found it by the school baseball field. This is only the second one I’ve seen in the Ajo area. I’ve been trying to relocate it but so far, no luck.
Categories
Astrophotography Birding Herps Insects

A Hike up Alamo Canyon

I’ve been wanting to do this since I got here, but my knee hasn’t. My left knee has been pretty sore since I left South Dakota but is slowly getting better. Today, I tested it out on Alamo Canyon, and it did fine. The park biologist, Danny Martin, told me he had seen some good butterflies there this summer, including Tropical Leafwings and Zilpa Longtails. The Zilpa Longtail would have been a lifer, but I couldn’t find any today. Probably getting too late in the season, but there were still some Tropical Leafwings, and I was very happy to get the best photos I have ever taken of that species. I saw some Tropical Leafwings years ago at Miller Canyon but had poor luck photographing them.

A Tropical Leafwing, finally posing the way I needed it to. They have a strong tendency to land, fold their wings, and face directly toward or away from me. After many failed attempts I finally got this one in a decent position, with the sun behind me. This species is very similar to the Goatweed Butterfly, but has a small tooth below that larger tooth and above the lower corner of the wing.
Then, miracle of miracles, it opened the wings up and I got just a few shots before it flew off again. The wing pattern is that of a male.
I found this Sonoran Collared Lizard basking on a rock; I don’t remember ever seeing one this late in the season.
A couple of days ago I was hiking off Pipeline Road when I found what I believe is a metate, a grinding rock used by Native Americans. It was the only large rock in the area and the flat, slightly concave surface makes it a likely metate.
The latest big excitement at Lake Ajo, a Surf Scoter.
Jupiter is now rising up over 50 degrees above the horizon, the highest altitude I’ve been image it since I started doing this. The higher altitude helps get it out of the murk and turbulence of the atmosphere. I tried it a few nights ago despite only average “seeing” conditions. I took 6 three-minute videos and stacked the best frames. Expect more Jupiter images in the near future!
Categories
Birding Insects Photography

Birds around Ajo

It has been hot for the last week or so but now a big cool down is here. Very windy yesterday and it finally blew in some new birds. Today, I had Red-necked Phalaropes, Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, California Gull and some Ring-billed Gulls at the sewage ponds. There are Soras and Virginia Rails at Highway Tank. Today I watched a Great Egret in a palm tree, I wondered what it was doing up there. About an hour later I came back and it was swallowing House Finch. I had a couple of good nights for astro too, but nothing ready to show yet.

There is still one Lewis’s Woodpecker at the golf course, and I got a good photo this afternoon.
I’ve seen two Sora at Highway Tank; this one is a juvenile and the other is an adult.
No frogs, no fish, no problem.
Carmine Skimmer at Highway Tank. I originally thought this was a Flame Skimmer but have changed my ID.
Virginia Rail at Highway Tank
More Great Egrets
Categories
Astrophotography Birding Insects Photography

Ajo for the Winter

I arrived in Ajo almost a week ago. I’ve been waiting to accumulate some new photos before posting an update. The area has had a good monsoon season, everything is green, and all the tanks and ponds are full of water. The bird migration is building up slowly here, so far nothing very exciting. I had a Kit Fox near the camper last night while I was out doing astro. It is good to be back in the Sonoran Desert.

A California Patch, first one I’ve seen in a long time. This species is not common here. This one was nectaring on Desert Broom.
This is only the second Pyrruloxia I’ve seen in the Ajo area. More common to the east. I found this one this morning near Darby Well.
A female Phainopepla, these birds should be happy this winter, there is a huge crop of mistletoe berries for them to eat.
Another dark nebula, this is known as the Wolf’s Cave Nebula, or LDN 1217. It is located in the constellation Cepheus.
Categories
Birding Travel

On the Road Again, New Mexico

I left Pierre last Sunday morning and headed south. First night was at McCook, NE and the second at the roadside park at Timpas, CO. Now I’m at the Bosque Birders RV Park near Socorro, NM. I paid for two nights here since I was really tired of driving and needed a break. Birding at Bosque del Apache NWR is pretty slow but I’m seeing lots of birds I haven’t seen for many months now. Tomorrow, I plan to drive to Ajo but may make a stop at the Sonoran Desert Museum outside of Tucson. There has been a White-eared Hummingbird there for several days. It would be a life bird for me if it stays. I will need to get an early start for that, it is over 500 miles to Ajo and I won’t be able to make it if I spend too much time looking for this hummingbird.

While in Pierre, I saw this mantis laying eggs on the corner of my parents’ house. I’ve never seen this before. This is the European Mantis, not native. They are introduced into gardens as a means of pest control, but this is a misguided action. Mantids eat any insect, beneficial or harmful. They are not particular.
This fall migration produced more Nashville Warblers than I’ve ever seen before, here is one of them on a red-osier dogwood.
Here’s a somewhat rare bird for the Pierre area, a Yellow-throated Vireo. I keep a few county life lists, and this was a new species for my Stanley County life list (now at 292 species).
Orange-crowned Warbler, also on red-osier dogwood. Notice all the dark spots on the leaves, those are aphids that the warblers feed on, heavily, in the fall.
Yellow-rumped Warblers are known to feed on fruits, usually in the winter, but this one is already eating cedar berries in September. The ability to eat and digest fruits allows this species to winter further north than most warbler species.
The only photo I’ve taken since I left Pierre, a Roadrunner at Bosque del Apache NWR.

Categories
Aurora Borealis Birding Insects Photography

Northern Lights

I was very optimistic about photographing the aurora borealis last night. Earlier in the day, Spaceweather.com and NOAA Spaceweather Prediction Center were forecasting a possible G3 class solar storm. Later in the day, that prediction was downgraded to G2 or G1. I went out and watched anyway, it was a clear night and the moon is rising later so the sky was dark. As soon as it got dark, I could see a glow in the north and then areas of brighter glow. To my eyes, it was not very impressive, but the camera caught good auroral activity.

Aurora borealis low on the horizon. Not much of a show but I was glad to see it anyway. Maybe tonight will be better. The sun is very active now. In this image, the Double Cluster can be seen in the upper right. The bright star rising just above the trees is Capella. Just a bit to the left of Capella is the tip of the state radio communications tower poking above the trees. As always, right click on the image and open in a new tab for larger view. Taken with a Canon 6D, Sigma 35mm f1.4 lens, mounted on an iOptron Sky Tracker, 30 second exposure at ISO 1600.
A few days ago, a passing thunderstorm sparked a grass fire to my west. It didn’t last long, the rain put it out shortly after.
A juvenile Townsend’s Solitaire on the roof of the outhouse in the Reva Gap Campground.
Gray Hairstreak nectaring.
Categories
Astrophotography Birding Photography

Astrophotography at the Slim Buttes

The last few nights have been clear and dark. This area has the darkest skies to be found anywhere in North America and it is pretty amazing at night with no moon. I can see the Andromeda Galaxy with no difficulty, even without binoculars. I set up the Losmandy G11 and used the 500 f4 for a dark nebula and a comet.

I will have to leave pretty soon. I have an appointment in Pierre Monday morning. It is going to be hot there!

This is comet C/2017 K2 (PANSTARRS). It is an Oort Cloud comet with a very long orbital period, it probably took millions of years to arrive at our sun from its origin in the Oort Cloud. It is a very large comet, at about 11 miles diameter. It cannot be seen without at least a 6-inch telescope. In my image, a faint red nebula is visible to the left of the comet. Its current location is in the constellation Ophiuchus. I wanted to get more exposure, but I had to deal with some tall trees that obscured it shortly after it got dark enough for photography.
LDN 1082, a dark nebula in Cepheus. It is also known as Barnard 150. Also known as the Seahorse Nebula. This is actually upside down, I flipped it so the “seahorse” shape is more obvious. The interstellar cloud is so dense that the light of the stars behind it and all other background emissions are completely absorbed. An active star formation takes place almost invisibly inside the nebula.
Flip it again, and it looks like a person walking, maybe with a long cape. So, the Batman Nebula?
While out for a walk a few days ago, this American Kestrel started hazing me. It flew over many times, not happy with my presence. I assume there were young nearby.
More elk, a cow and young calf inspecting something. I had 8 elk pass by in just a few minutes.
A pair of Trumpeter Swans that nested at the JB Dam. Two cygnets can be seen hunkered down on the nest. There are some Painted Turtles sharing the nest with the swans.
A Spotted Towhee that posed nicely for me.