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.
One of maybe eight that were sitting on the road. We could hear more. It was hard to accurately count them as most would flush then land again up ahead with other poorwills. This is nearly a full frame image.This one was in the vegetation just off the road. This is a slightly cropped image. I was so close that I couldn’t fit the entire bird in the frame. I photographed this one from the truck window, shooting almost straight down. It never flushed, even as we drove by.
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.
The Northern Saw-whet Owl. Charlie was sure he could hear two but we only saw one. A few days ago, I went up by Government Hill for a hike. Two Prairie Falcons started harassing me, I got a pretty good shot of one flying straight at me. In a muddy stock pond, I saw this clump of Broadleaf Arrowhead, I thought it made a nice photo. Hypoprepia miniata, Scarlet-winged Lichen Moth. As the name suggests, larvae feed on lichens. Parthenice Tiger Moth, Apantesis parthenice. Will be a new South Dakota record for BugGuide. A Western Wood-Pewee posing on a lichen covered branch.
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.
My first clue was the black spot in the orange eye of the hindwing. In an Anise Swallowtail, that black spot is centered. In the Old World Swallowtail, the black spot is on the border. I got more photos, some showing the underwing and abdomen. The Anise Swallowtail has a mostly black abdomen; the Old World Swallowtail has a yellow abdomen with black stripes. There are other differences too but are more subtle and not as easy to pick out. A nice frame filler! I surely didn’t expect to get a lifer butterfly out here in the Slim Buttes, but I did. An Anise Swallowtail from the Black Hills, for comparison.
Today I went for a long hike, off trail and down canyon. I ended up at Puckeroo Spring. I wanted to see if I could find the old Doc Hodge house. Doc Hodge was what we would call a naturopathic doctor nowadays. He was apparently friendly with the Sioux and learned about their methods of treating disease and injuries. He lived in a house in what is now Doc Hodge Draw. There is a Doc Hodge Spring too. I could see the remains of the house in Google maps and wanted to see it for myself. It is on private land, so I just looked from high spots along the fence line with the National Forest Service property. I can find almost nothing on the internet about Doc Hodge, and no photos of the old house. I did find this comment in an article in South Dakota Magazine.
Untamed Harding County April 19, 2016 By John Andrews
Scott B Besler said:
In reply to Wayne Rosby’s question about the Doc Hodge place. Doc Hodge was an herbal doctor to whom many swore loyalty for curing illness and aches during those early years in Harding County. The Hodges had a ranch there along with Doc Hodges hospital/infirmary. The ranch stayed in the family for a number of years and is now part of the Lermeny ranch. My grandmother gave Doc Hodge credit for his treatment of my mother when she was a young girl and contracted Scarlet Fever. She said his herbal treatment lowered her high fever and may have saved her life. I too am obviously happy about that or I might not be here.
It just happens that I met Wayne Rosby and his wife, Dorothy, a few days ago. Charlie Miller stopped in with them and we had a nice visit. Dorothy is Charlie’s sister. At the time I didn’t even think to ask them about Doc Hodge’s house.
Here’s a satellite image from Google Maps, showing the old house. Not much to see here, but I guess this is it. This was taken from the ridge above Puckeroo Spring. All the trees look closer to the house than they do in the Google Map image, but that is probably just the telephoto lens effect. I’m not entirely sure this is the same building. I could see this from the fence line. Scott Besler’s comment indicated a hospital/infimary, whether it was part of the house or separate, I have no idea. That big tree in the background looks like the same tree in the first photo, as does the leaning tree on the right side of the photo. I can see the old stone walls in the Google Map image too.
I’ve been checking on a patch of Dogbane (Apocynum cannabinum) and photographing insects on the flowers. Although the plant is poisonous to most mammals, including humans, the flowers are very attractive to insects. All parts of the plant are toxic to mammals and can cause cardiac arrest if eaten. It is a member of the Apocynaceae family and other plants in the family are also poisonous. Dogbane is a host plant for many insects, including the Snowberry Clearwing Moth. Although I found many species of flies, the lack of bees is quite concerning. Not much is known about most of these species, just a name and a distribution. It is fun and challenging photographing them; I used a 100mm f2.8 macro and a ringflash.
A soldier fly, Odontomyia cincta.Hobomok Skipper. Common Thick-leg Fly, Tropidia quadrata. This is a species of hover fly. Larvae are aquatic. Broad-headed Marsh Fly, Helophilus latifrons.Yellow-shouldered Drone Fly, Eristalis stipator.Clay-colored Leaf Beetle, Anomoea laticlavia. According to comments in BugGuide, larvae are myrmecophiles having an association with ants of the genus Formica.
I started getting interested in the pollinators of Ajo Lilies after the local plants started flowering. I have a dozen or so flowering around the camper now and I thought it might be worth trying to photograph pollinators. I did a Google search for photos of Ajo Lily pollinators and was surprised that I could only find one image and it wasn’t very good. Pollinators are reported to be sphinx moth and possibly hummingbirds. The new flowers open in the late afternoon. They only last a couple of days at the most. Tonight, I set up the laser trigger on a fresh flower. Just as it started getting dark, I got a White-lined Sphinx Moth at the flower.
This isn’t exactly what I was going for, but I’ll take it. The moth has pollen on its legs and nectar on its proboscis. I will try again tomorrow night. As always, right click on the image and open in a new tab for a larger image. While scouting around for a good Ajo Lily setup, I found two Goode’s Horned Lizards, first of the spring. Cropped view of the head. There are two species of horned lizards in the Ajo area, the arrangement of the cranial horns is one way to separate them. And I’ll throw in a couple of new flower photos. This one is Mentzelia affinis.Silene antirrina.
It has been a long stretch of cool to cold, wet and windy weather. Just a couple of days ago, the area got an inch of rain and some snow on the mountains. However, I think we have finally turned the corner on winter and spring is going to take over. This has certainly been the coldest winter I’ve spent in the Sonoran Desert. I entered eleven photos in the Cabeza Prieta Natural History Association Sonoran Desert Photo Show. I found a good place to get photos printed right here in Ajo so I picked out some of my favorite Sonoran Desert photos. All the entries will be on display for the month of March.
What’s that white stuff? It didn’t last long. Snow on Child’s Mountain. There are more swifts and swallows starting to show up. I still keep trying for a good shot of a White-throated Swift and was rewarded with this one. After one of the recent storms, I checked Lake Ajo and found this Herring Gull on February 22. This is a pretty rare bird for Pima County and some birders were on the way to see it, but it flew off about 30 minutes after I saw it and never returned. I have had absolutely no good weather for astro since my last post. This is M63 that I imaged last spring while at Granite Gap. I spent a lot of time reprocessing this image. I think this version is much improved. Also known as the Sunflower Galaxy.
It has not been very good weather for doing astrophotography, or anything else for that matter. Cloudy, windy, cold, and even wet most of the time. I have only managed a few nights of good astro weather. Birding hasn’t fared much better, but I am able to pick up 25-30 species on a good day. I have now seen at least five different Long-eared Owls in the area. They do not cooperate for good photos.
This is one of those “I did it to see what it would look like” astro images. In the upper left is NGC 2537, also known as the Bear Paw Galaxy. It is a blue, compact dwarf galaxy in the constellation Lynx, about 22 million light years away. The narrow galaxy in the lower right is IC 2233. The two galaxies were once thought to be interacting, but we now know that they are separated by vast distances and not close enough, IC 2233 is probably at least 30-40 million light years out there. There are many other galaxies in the background. Here’s a tighter crop on the Bear Paw Galaxy, one can see how it gets its name (except a bear would actually have 5 toes). Maybe there are 3 toed bear-like creatures on a planet orbiting one the galaxies stars. Or some intelligent life form shooting images of the Milky Way Galaxy and wondering the same things. I’ve imaged the Leo Triplets and each of the three galaxies in the triplet, but this is the first time I’ve tried the Leo Quartet. Each of these galaxies is very small in view, much smaller and fainter than the Leo Triplets. Also known as Hickson 44 galaxy group, these are interacting galaxies. Located in the constellation Leo and about 80 million light years out there. The Tiger’s Eye or NGC 2841. I have imaged this before and am just adding more exposure. Lots of distant background galaxies, none of which show up in Stellarium. NGC 2683, also known as the UFO Galaxy. As with the Tiger’s Eye, I’m just adding more exposure to a previous image. Despite the lousy weather, spring is starting to show, I saw my first Mohave Desert Stars a few days ago. A sure sign of spring!
It has been a strange month, starting out cloudy a lot of the time, then rain, now cold. It is cold enough at night to take a lot of the fun out of being outside doing astro. I’m still doing it though. A couple more nights to go then the moon will take over for a while.
I’ve put in parts of three nights doing Thor’s Helmet, again. This time with the C8. I did some pretty fancy processing to make it look this good. I’m starting to think I need new software rather than a new camera!Same with M78. My favorite nebula showing interstellar dust clouds and reflection nebulas, in the constellation Orion. This is the Headphone Nebula, officially Jones-Emberson 1, a very faint planetary nebula in the constellation Lynx. I have wanted to try this one for a long time. Last winter I planned on it but could not even find it, it is far too dim to see in the scope and even long exposures are barely enough to show it. I figured out where it is this winter. At the center is a very blue white dwarf star, leftover from the shedding of the outer layers of gas from the dying star. The Flame Nebula, actually a part of the Horsehead Nebula complex. With the C8 this is about all of the Horsehead Nebula that will fit in the frame. The huge bright star is Alnitak. Alnitak is a blue supergiant with two companion stars, all three appear as one. I took an afternoon hike on Black Mountain and while coming down a steep arroyo I discovered this Desert Bighorn skull. This is certainly the largest ram specimen I’ve seen around here. I’m going to check on the legalities of possessing something like this and if it is OK, I will go back and salvage it.
It has been a long time since I’ve posted anything, due mostly to not having much to post. It has been poor for astrophotography and not much for new birds. Of course, this time of year is very slow for herps and butterflies. So, I just go for hikes, read books, find what birds I can and try to get some good photos. This is turning out to be a fairly wet winter and the hope is that the spring bloom will be a good one. As always, right click and open in a new tab to see a larger image.
This is NGC 1961 in the Camelopardalis constellation.
The distance is around 180-200 million light years, and its apparent size is 4’x3′; it is the largest member of a small group of ten galaxies. At this size, it is very small for astrophotography so I’m pleased with how it turned out. None of the stars in this image would be visible to the unaided eye and most would be invisible even with binoculars.
It is also classified as Arp 184 (Arp is the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies). The strange shape of this galaxy has never been completely explained. There is no trace of an interaction with a companion. There are other background galaxies about which I know nothing, the distances must be much greater. What’s that? Apparently a hybrid Mexican Duck/Mallard. That’s a hen Mallard behind it. This bird showed up at Lake Ajo for a few days then left. One of the few Sage Thrashers I’ve seen this winter. This one posed nicely for some photos. This is the winter for Lark Sparrows in the Sonoran Desert. I have never seen so many in this area. Yet another photo of a Green-tailed Towhee, which are pretty common this winter too. Sagebrush Sparrows are in lower numbers than I’m used to. I’ve only seen five of them so far. A Blue-gray Gnatcatcher showing the underside of the tail, a key characteristic to differentiate from the Black-tailed Gnatcatcher.
