Category: Insects

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Birding Herps Insects Photography

Back at Camp

I left Pierre last week and headed for my quiet spot, near Jewel Cave. It is much cooler here and I have shade now, a big plus! It has been a very hot summer so far. I’ve just been up to my usual activities, birding, hiking, photography.

While still in Pierre, I spent a morning watching Caspian Terns fishing on the river. I’ve tried to get a good shot of one in a dive but so far, I’ve had no luck with that.
It is easy enough to catch them after the dive though!
Also while still at Pierre, I got into a few Buff-breasted Sandpipers. I never got very close to them, this is about as good as the photography gets. It is nice to have a Killdeer in the frame for a size comparison. Species number 333 for the year, it is getting harder to find new ones!
While photographing birds at Baldwin Spring, I saw this Common Gartersnake at the water. Some still call this the Red-sided Gartersnake. It appeared to be waiting for some prey to show up but I never saw any action like that.
A Red-shafted (Northern) Flicker at Baldwin Spring. This is my favorite spring to sit at for bird photography!
A female Spotted Towhee in for a drink, right where the gartersnake was. It was a big gartersnake but I don’t know if it could have taken a bird of this size.
A Black-capped Chickadee tossing down some kind of insect.
It’s that time of year, when the Common Wood-Nymphs come out and fly around.
And the Robber Flies too. This is a species known as the Hanging Thieves, known for hanging from a perch instead of landing on it.
Categories
Birding Flowers and Plants Herps Insects

Snakes and Birds

I was looking around the area by the camper when I found two Vesper Sparrows obviously agitated about something other than me. I searched the ground near where they seemed to be focusing their attention.
And this is what I found. An Eastern Racer had captured one of their nestlings and was in the process of swallowing it. Although the Latin name for this species is Coluber constrictor, Eastern Racers are not a true constrictor, usually swallowing their prey alive. In this case, I think the bird was suffocated first. I watched it for a long time but it finally took the bird into some tall grass where I couldn’t get photos.
One afternoon I found this Rufous Hummingbird at the feeder, two days later it is still here and another one has joined it. I took a hike in Hell Canyon this morning and saw two more! This one is an immature female.
Here’s one of the Rufous Hummingbirds in Hell Canyon, an immature male.
And now a few flowers and butterflies: Richardson’s Geranium, in Hell Canyon.
A Reakirt’s Blue on Dalea.
And another Juniper Hairstreak, also on Dalea.
Categories
Birding Insects

More Birds

I’m still here in the Black Hills. It is has been pretty cool and also quite a bit of rain, one afternoon I got hailed on, lots of hail but it was small. I’m up to 332 species of birds for the year. At my campsite, the pine cone crop is nonexistent, but I can drive about 5 miles north and there are lots of cones, and that is where I got my latest species, a Red Crossbill. The weather looks suitable for some astrophotography for the next few nights, so if that works out I will be staying up late.

I was at Mud Springs when I got this male Red Crossbill. At first it stayed high in the trees, as I was about to leave it flew down low and landed on a short pine. It actually let me walk up pretty close to it.
I went to Newcastle for groceries and on the way drove up to the Elk Mountain Lookout. In past years, I’ve found nesting Lewis’s Woodpeckers up there and this year was no exception. By the 4th of July they are always feeding young.
At my favorite bird photography spot, an Ovenbird posing on a lichen covered log.
Western Tanagers are easy at my photo spot, this female came in very close, the male is out of focus behind her.
And here is the male.
While hiking out from the photo spot, I got this Juniper Hairstreak on a coneflower.
Categories
Birding Flowers and Plants Insects Mammals

Slim Buttes

I’ve been checking out the area, picking up a few more new birds. Yesterday there was an eBird alert on a Cassin’s Kingbird just 20 miles away, so I went to look for it this morning. I did not find it and neither did another birder who came to look for it. Cassin’s Kingbird is quite rare in South Dakota but I saw lots of them in Arizona and New Mexico this spring. I did finally find a Mountain Bluebird though, which brought me up to 324 species.

I found a pair of Long-billed Curlews on the Park Road, they must have had young ones hidden in the grass as they kept harassing me. This may be the best flight shot I’ve ever got of a Long-billed Curlew.
A mother Pronghorn with her twins. There are lots of Pronghorns around, this just happened to be close to the road and in nice light!
I was at the pond in Deer Draw this morning, when I heard a slurping sound. I crept up to the pond and saw this cow Elk in the water, as soon as she saw me she took off. Photo in bad light.
Yellow Avens (Geum aleppicum) with a visiting Nomad Bee. Yellow Avens is a common flower that is native across temperate North America, Europe and Asia.
A Badger I saw way out on the prairie, I could not get closer.
Weidemeyer’s Admiral on Woodbine.
Wilson’s Snipe on a post by a small wetland.
The 324th species for my year list, a Mountain Bluebird.
Categories
Birding Flowers and Plants Insects

Out West Again

I’m currently in the Slim Buttes of Harding County. I spent a few days at a Shadehill Reservoir campground, near Lemmon, South Dakota. The Grand River National Grassland is in this area and is a good place to get Baird’s Sparrow. I left there this morning and its a good thing as that campground just got hit by a severe thunderstorm, with large hail and strong wind. It is nice here. So far no mosquitoes. I’m up to 322 species of birds for the year now. It is getting harder to find new ones, but I seem to get one or two every day since I left Pierre.

Finding a Caspian Tern was surprisingly difficult but I finally got one on Discovery Island while I was still in Pierre.
A wet Baird’s Sparrow. I only saw three and heard several, the Merlin app picked up more but I couldn’t hear them. A very secretive bird that usually hides in the grass, on this morning I found this one on the road, I assume it was avoiding the wet grass.
My 322nd species for the year, Trumpeter Swans at the JB Pond. They have nested there for several years now.

A fledgling Chestnut-collared Longspur in the rain. I suspect these young birds were having a hard time staying warm. Some seemed quite lethargic. There were lots of them on the road and I saw some dead ones.
A distant shot of a Short-eared Owl. This is another species that I haven’t seen for a long time. I’m hoping for some better opportunities!
A Wolf Spider carrying her young.
A Silvery Blue butterfly, one of the few butterflies I’ve been able to photograph recently.
The Grand River National Grassland has an abundance of wild flowers, I selected this one to show, Yellow Sundrops, Oenothera serrulata.
A female Lazuli Bunting that posed nicely for me.
Categories
Birding Herps Insects

Some More Photos

I’m still at Granite Gap. I’ve been making trips down to Cave Creek and the Paradise area. My bird list for 2024 keeps growing, now at 225, compared to 155 at this time last year. I’ve been doing some astro too, I’m working on a very faint planetary nebula called Abell 35. It is not ready to show just yet.

An Elegant Trogon I found in the South Fork of Cave Creek. I could hear it calling in a grove of oaks but couldn’t see it. Suddenly it flew out and landed right in front of me.
A female Arizona Woodpecker at the George Walker House in Paradise. I also got a Juniper Titmouse and a Band-tailed Pigeon, both of which were new for the year.
An Olive-sided Flycatcher that I got on my walk this morning, also new for the year. This was at Granite Gap.
Also from my walk this morning, a Round-tailed Horned Lizard. I’m still looking for the Texas Horned Lizard. I got pretty excited at first when I found this one, but it turned out to be a Round-tailed.
A Striped Plateau Lizard. These are common in the Chiricahua Mountains and Peloncillo Mountains, but are not found anywhere else in the United States.
Butterflies have been hard to find, other than the usual Checkered Whites and a few other species. This morning I got this Elada Checkerspot, I haven’t seen this species for a long time.
Categories
Insects

Blister Beetles

Spring in the Sonoran Desert is a good time for the emergence of blister beetles. In past years, I’ve seen swarms of the species Lytta magister, Master Blister Beetle. These are large colorful blister beetles that can be very abundant locally. Yesterday at Highway Tank, I saw for the first time the Iron Cross Blister Beetle, Tegrodera aloga. Also a large species, they are very colorful and a good example of aposematism, or advertising to potential predators that an organism is not worth eating. Aposematic signals are beneficial for both predator and prey, since both avoid potential harm.

The Iron Cross Blister Beetle. These beetles secret cantharidin, a potent toxin that causes severe blistering. The toxin can be lethal if ingested. It is a problem for farmers in some areas. The beetles get into hay and when eaten by horses, the toxin can kill them. On the beneficial side, cantharidin is used in the medical field as a topical medication in the removal of warts, removal of tattoos, and has been researched for certain cancer treatments.
From what I’ve gathered reading about these beetles, they are usually found locally but abundantly, and only for a short time. That is what I saw at Highway Tank. There were hundreds of them but only in a small area.
This is the other species that is more commonly seen: Lytta magister, Master Blister Beetle. Apparently, this species is also toxic. I cannot find any information on whether one or the other is the more toxic. Also a good example of aposematism, but not as pronounced, so maybe this species is not as toxic as the Iron Cross Blister Beetle.

Categories
Astrophotography Birding Flowers and Plants Insects

Mid April Update

I am still in Ajo. As long as it doesn’t get too hot, I’m not inclined to leave. I had a few good nights for astro but now the moon is getting bright again. Although the new dual band filter allows me to image nebulas in moonlight, it does not work for galaxies. Light pollution and moonlight are galaxies killers! Dark skies are needed. Birding has remained slow. I do have a few photos to show though.

This is a new one for me, a hybrid Blue-winged Teal X Cinnamon Teal. One can see a partial facial crescent, the white flank mark and spotting of a Blue-winged Teal on the hybrid. The top of the head is greenish on both birds shown here. I never noticed that on a male Cinnamon Teal before but it is there. Not the best of photos, the Ajo sewage ponds are a terrible place for photography. The birds are too far away and shooting is through a chain link fence, not a good combination.
I haven’t seen an Elf Owl for several years now, only because I haven’t looked. Last night I decided to go owling and found this Elf Owl. These owls are migratory, I’ve seen them as early as late March, they will get easier to find as the weather warms.
A crane fly on a fiddleneck plant. Nothing too special about either one, I just like the photo.
M94, sometimes called the Croc’s Eye Galaxy. I tried this years ago before I was guiding, the results were not very good. I also remember seeing that faint nebulosity surrounding the inner galaxy and thinking it must be some kind of processing artifact that I needed to get rid of. It is not, that is real. Rather than repeat everything known about this galaxy, you can read all about it HERE.
This is M109, a galaxy not far from M94, in Ursa Major. The most distant identifiable object in the image is the luminous galaxy SDSS J115722.65+531644.3, annotated in white. Its redshift indicates a distance of nearly 3.5 billion light years.
Known as the Umbrella Galaxy, NGC 4651 is in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster. The name is due to the umbrella-shaped structure that extends from its disk. It is composed of stellar streams, the remnants of a much smaller galaxy that has been torn apart by NGC 4651’s tidal forces. I really had to push the processing to make that show up!
Categories
Astrophotography Birding Flowers and Plants Insects

More Photos from the Ajo Area

I made a trip to Buckeye to stock up at Walmart and on the way there, I birded. There were lots of birds at the Gillespie Dam, hundreds of egrets and herons, two species of cormorants, and lots of pelicans. Astrophotography continues to be hard, with too many clouds. But I have managed to get some done. I also made a trip down to Alamo Canyon, long overdue.

This is Abell 31, also known as Sh2-290. It is a very faint planetary nebula in the constellation Cancer. It is so faint that I cannot see it in any of my images until I stack and process. As far as planetary nebulas go, it is fairly large in view. This is what I got after 8 hours of exposure with the Nebula Booster filter and the 500f4 lens.
Comet 62P/Tsuchinshan is now passing through the Virgo Galaxy Cluster, so I tried it last night. At magnitude 10.5 it isn’t very bright. The comet is over 50 million miles distance. The galaxies are on the order of 50 million light years, some are nearly 90 million light years out there.
On a walk in Alamo Canyon, I found lots of Miner’s Lettuce, Claytonia perfoliata.
And also Redmaids, Calandrinia ciliata.
Some of the pelicans and one Snowy Egret at Gillespie Dam.
Snowy Egret swallowing a fish.
Abert’s Towhee at Gillespie Dam.
Some of the egrets I saw. At 100mm focal length, this is all could get in one frame.
Also in Alamo Canyon, I saw several Empress Leilia nectaring on Gooding’s Vervain. For me, this is unusual for two reasons. I rarely if ever have seen this species of hackberry butterfly nectar on anything and in my experience, not many butterflies nectar at this species of plant.
At the parking lot in Alamo Canyon, I watched this Northern Cardinal repeatedly attack its image in a sideview mirror on another car parked there. Then it flew up onto this Saguaro to sing loudly!
Categories
Astrophotography Birding Insects

More Astrophotography and a Couple of Others

The new moon has come and gone, and I had to deal with a lot of clouds, heavy dew, and cold. However, with the new filter I was able to take advantage of some good weather over the last few days and I had great results. Birding has remained extremely slow, nothing but the regular desert birds. I had nine photos printed for the Sonoran Desert Photo Show that is taking place in March. It is always interesting to see all the photos that are on display, I hope there is good turnout.

I tried this once before with the C8 but it is so dim that details were hard to catch when imaging at f6.3. The last couple of nights I used the 500f4 and the IDAS Nebula Booster filter and the results were amazing. This is the Medusa Nebula, or Sh-2 274 or Abell 21. It is a planetary nebula, what our sun will look like sometime in the distant future as it loses its outer layers of gas and transforms into a white dwarf. The Medusa Nebula is about 4 light years in diameter and 1500 light years distant toward the constellation Gemini.
Also done with the 500f4 and the new filter, the Cone Nebula, the Christmas Tree Cluster, and the Fox Fur Nebula. The faint nebula is approximately seven light-years long (with an apparent length of 10 arcminutes) and is 2,700 light-years away from Earth.
Thor’s Helmet with the new filter. I also used StarXterminator to remove the stars before processing. There are so many stars they overwhelm the image if they aren’t removed. I’ve never been able to get so much detail from the dimmer areas of this nebula.
This is the Seagull Nebula, a large emission nebula between the constellations Monoceros and Canis Major. I could not fit the entire nebula in the frame with the 500f4. I may have to try a mosaic someday. You may notice the prominent bluish arc in the lower center area. This is a bow shock from runaway star FN Canis Majoris.
I was at Highway Tank a couple of days ago and found this Least Sandpiper. Not exactly an exciting bird to see but it was the first one I’ve ever seen at Highway Tank. This bird puts my species total for Highway Tank at 120.
This is a Desert Orangetip, the Pima variety. The Desert Orangetip ranges widely from far west Texas to southern California and into Nevada. The eastern populations are yellow on the upper wing (Pima Orangetip) and western populations are white. One of the earliest spring flying butterflies, this one is nectaring on Fairy Duster.