I left Bosque del Apache yesterday morning and drove straight through to Timpas, near La Junta, CO. I’ve stayed at Timpas before, it is a Forest Service picnic area/campsite in the Comanche National Grassland, no cell phone service and therefore no internet for me. There is usually no one there and that’s what I found when I got there last night. It was windy and cloudy, but I was still able to find a Cassin’s Sparrow. This morning, the weather was much better, the Cassin’s Sparrows were easy and I got some nice photos. That accomplished, I drove north to Rocky Ford where I picked up a Mississippi Kite (I saw them there last spring too), then north to the Pawnee National Grassland where I was hoping for Thick-billed Longspur (McCown’s Longspur) and Mountain Plover. I got the longspurs but saw no plovers. With a few other new birds for the year, I’m now up to 250 species. Tonight, I’m in the Cabelas RV park in Sidney, NE.
Category: Photography
It has been a very cool spring. I actually had frost on the truck this morning! Normally by now we would be seeing highs in the low 90’s. It looks like that will be coming next week. The Ajo area got another inch of rain too. Birding is starting to pick up, just in the last few days, Franklin’s Gulls, Vaux’s Swift, Swainson’s Hawk, and lots of White-faced Ibis have been showing up. I have a lot of new photos to post.
Rocket Launch
This evening a Falcon 9 rocket was scheduled to launch from Vandenberg SFB, shortly after sunset. The timing was perfect for a big show if the launch actually happened. And it did! Mike Venard came out to watch the show with me and we were both quite impressed. One really has to see it to appreciate the spectacular view, but I took photos, of course, and so here some of them are. They don’t really do justice to what we saw though.
This morning I went on hike up Child’s Mountain. It has been pretty chilly the last few days and it still was this morning, until the sun finally came out. My hiking trail is the road that leads to the summit. It is gated and open only to foot traffic. Off road, the terrain is very rocky and steep. The flowers are really coming along, Brittlebush is starting to bloom profusely. About a mile up, there is a flat and there I discovered a new plant for me, growing in abundance.
It has been a while since I posted anything, so here it goes. The weather here has been just perfect, not too hot, not too cold. Unfortunately, there have been a lot of clouds cutting into my astrophotography. All the rain has started another spring bloom that could rival last years. I have to keep reminding myself that it is only early March, once the weather turns warmer, the herps, plants, insects, birds, mammals will all be more prominent. I am really looking forward to it.
Yikes! Shrikes!
This afternoon I was just finishing up birding the Ajo golf course. I came around the rear of the truck and there on the ground, right by the front door, was a Loggerhead Shrike and a Cactus Wren in a deadly struggle. I was quite amazed as I have never seen a Loggerhead Shrike kill anything much bigger than a lizard. The Cactus Wren was nearly as big as the shrike and it was putting up quite a fight. Several times it tried to get its claws into the shrike’s eyes. The shrike never gave up and eventually it killed the wren. I timed it at 16 minutes, but I have no idea how long they had been battling before I found them.
Cat, Canine and Birds
I’ve been keeping busy with some astrophotography but don’t have any images that I’m ready to show just yet. I did have some success with the trail cams at Highway Tank, finally, a Mountain Lion passed through the field of view. I’ve been seeing the fresh tracks of a lion there for a long time.
Common Poorwills
Sunday night Charlie Miller and I went for a night drive, mostly to see if we could get more Northern Saw-whets to responds to calls. We had no success with that. However, on the roads there were Common Poorwills. I think these must have been family groups, as there would be several close to together, then none for a distance. Also, some of the birds were incredibly tame, I think I could have picked up several of them, but I didn’t try that. I suspect that these were the young ones, probably just out of the nest. One just sat on the road as we drove slowly by. I took a photo out of the truck window, looking down.
Last night, Charlie Miller came out to join me for some black lighting for insects. He got here about dark and almost immediately heard a Northern Saw-whet Owl calling. Of course, I couldn’t hear it, but he guided us to where it was and soon we were standing under it. I could hear it quite well then. It stayed high in a pine, I was able to get some photos. That is the first saw-whet I’ve seen in a long time. The black lighting was kind of slow but we got some interesting things. As always, a larger image can be seen by right clicking and opening in a new tab.
Old World Swallowtail
Today my brother Ted was here, having come up from Rapid City to work on the communications tower north of my campsite. We were sitting outside visiting when I noticed a different species of swallowtail flying around. At first, I thought it was an Anise Swallowtail. It landed and I got a few photos. Later, I was checking the photos and determined that it was actually an Old World Swallowtail, also referred to as Baird’s Swallowtail, which is the subspecies that occurs in this area. This is a lifer butterfly for me! The Old World Swallowtail is found across Asia, Europe, and western North America, nearly the entire palearctic region. It is the only species of swallowtail in most of Europe. There are over 40 recognized subspecies. Unlike the nearly identical Anise Swallowtail (for which the larval food is plants in the Parsley family), the larvae of the Old World Swallowtail feed on various species of sagebrush and sageworts.