This morning I went for my usual morning hike. I headed west over the rim of the Peloncillo Mountains. At my location, that rim isn’t very high, but it still gives a great view of the surrounding area and the Chiricahua Mountains to the west. At the crest, as I was admiring the scenery, a Scott’s Oriole flew into some Ocotillos right in front of me, sun behind me. I thought sure, as soon as I raise up the camera it will fly off. But it didn’t. I took 77 photos as it foraged in the flowers. The bird was definitely pollinating too.
My favorite, nice light, nice action, nice background, great bird! What more could one ask for? I have lots of images like this one. This image shows the pollen on the bird’s face and bill. This one turned out very nice too. I’ve never seen a male Clark’s Spiny Lizard this colorful. At first, I wasn’t even sure what species this was. It doesn’t have the typical banding on the front legs, although there is some. The lizard posed so I could see the ventral blue patches. A Great Horned Owl, still apparently on a nest. This is getting pretty late in the season for that. Slender Janusia, Cottsia gracilis. This is the only species of Janusia in the region. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before. I copied the following from Southwest Desert Flora: A rare species in the United States, where Slender Janusia is found primarily in Arizona with small populations in New Mexico and Texas. It is also common in Baja California and Mexico.
I left Ajo on Wednesday and drove directly to Granite Gap. Ajo is getting hot, but here it is still very pleasant. This is a quiet location. I’ve been here three days and haven’t seen anyone. Not sure how long I will be here but at least a few more days. There are still quite a few flowers blooming and birding is good. The numbers of Tiger Whiptails are amazing and I’ve seen two Long-nosed Leopard Lizards.
The night before I left Ajo, I went herping with Danny and Rekha Martin. We got this Glossy Snake, a lifer for me! We also saw two Sidewinders. Here is one of the Sidewinders. One of two Long-nosed Leopard Lizards I’ve seen since arriving at Granite Gap. A cooperative Scott’s Oriole from this morning. Fallugia paradoxa, Apache Plume, is in flower now. A member of the Rose family, this is the only species in the genus Fallugia. One of my favorite desert flowers, Rock Hibiscus. I usually run across some of these in the Ajo area but not this spring. I only found one yesterday morning on my hike at Granite Gap. A Red-tailed Hawk carrying a Harris’s Antelope Ground Squirrel.
I’m still in Ajo. I will likely be heading east next week. It is getting pretty hot everyday now. I really hate to leave but it is time. I’ve had a few good nights of astro and the Long-tailed Brush Lizard mystery may have been solved.
M90, another of the Messier objects I’ve never imaged before. Looking at this in Stellarium I didn’t think it was going to look like much, but I’m impressed. It is a beautiful galaxy, rich colors, and lots of interesting things going on. The star-forming regions are very limited, so the outer arms appear smooth and nearly featureless. But the center is a different story. About 60 million light years out there, in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster, M90 is another of the rare, blue-shifted galaxies that is moving toward our galaxy instead of away from it. There are a lot of small, faint background galaxies and one larger dwarf galaxy, IC 3583. NGC 5033, also named the Waterbug Galaxy, is an inclined spiral galaxy located in the constellation Canes Venatici. I’m quite proud of this one, M13, the Great Cluster in Hercules. While it is pretty easy to get a photo of star cluster, getting one without blowing out the central stars, getting good round stars all around, good star color and without star bloating, is hard. I finally figured out a good formula, use shorter exposures, take lots of them, and use some different processing. The star colors came out very nicely. I like this!This afternoon I had two different Long-tailed Brush Lizards show up on my solar panel. One had half its tail missing, so I know there were two different ones. I think the explanation for where the earlier one came from is this; it climbed up the cables for the solar panels, which enter the camper through the window I sit by. Note the yellow throat and hints of blue on the belly of this male. A male Ornate Tree Lizard showing off. A male Black-tailed Gnatcatcher carrying food, there was a female in the area doing the same thing. I could not find the nest but didn’t spend much time looking for it.
The action around here is hard to keep up with. Last night I took a night walk on Child’s Mountain looking for snakes and whatever else might turn up. I got one Western Lyresnake and saw several Poorwills. This morning, I headed for Lake Ajo to check out the birds. I got a Willet and a Snowy Plover, both very good birds for this area. To top it all off, when I got back to the camper, I became aware of something on my shoulder, when I reached for it, whatever it was leaped off onto the floor. It was a small lizard, and I started to get suspicious. I herded it toward the door, and it climbed up on the screen. My camera with macro lens was in the truck, so I carefully snuck by the lizard, got the camera and took some photos. Proof of what it was, a Long-tailed Brush Lizard. I’ve been looking for one of these for a long time. I thought I had one once in Alamo Canyon years ago but was never quite sure about that one. This one is a positive ID. So, where did it come from? I could have picked it up this morning while birding around Lake Ajo, but it would have to been on my back while I went to the grocery store, got water and drove back. It could have already been in the truck from some previous day, and it just decided to climb onto me. Or had it somehow got into the camper and climbed onto me? I guess I will never know.
Long-tailed Brush Lizard. A lifer for me! Note the very long tail, some of which is out of the frame. These lizards are very similar to the Ornate Tree Lizard, but the wide row of enlarged, keeled scales down the back is diagnostic of Long-tailed Brush Lizard. Western Lyresnake from last night. I have much better photos of this species so didn’t bother trying to get more than this. This is the globular star cluster M3. One of the finest star clusters in the northern skies, it can be seen using binoculars in Canes Venatici. This the right time of year to be looking for globs, there are several (M3, M5, M13) that are easily seen with binoculars if one knows where to look. M3 contains over 500,000 stars, estimated to be 11 billion years old, about 32,600 light years out there. M98 or NGC 4192, is an intermediate spiral galaxy about 44.4 million light-years away in Coma Berenices, about 6° to the east of the bright star Denebola. It is dim and not very remarkable to look at, but there are interesting facts about it. It is one of the few galaxies with a blueshift, meaning it is moving toward our galaxy instead of away from it. Out of the billions of galaxies known about 100 are blueshifted.
The heat has arrived. Yesterday it hit 100 F at my campsite and probably will be close to that today. Nighttime warmth has brought out the insects and herps are more active too. I even managed to fit in a couple of nights of astro. Now to get some photos posted.
My first Gila Monster in several years. I found this one the road into McGrady Wash yesterday. This morning I found a Coachwhip on the Scenic Loop Road. I opted for this close-up of the head. Here is the whole snake, a big one. I learned a long time ago that trying to handle Coachwhips just doesn’t pay off. They fight and bite and they are strong. This is a bark-boring beetle, Temnoscheila chlorodia. Supposedly found on conifers, but there are no conifers around here, except for a very few in town. Must be a disperser. Triocnemis saporis, an uncommonly reported moth. Larval food plants include various species of Eriogonum.Pyrausta pseudonythesalis, apparently nothing is known about it other than basic distribution.Forsebia cinis, Forsebia Moth. Larval food plant is probably Yellow Palo Verde. This is the only species in the genus found north of Mexico. Angel Lichen Moth, Cisthene angelus. Larva feed on lichens and algae. A beetle in the genus Phengodes. The species is unknown, but a generic name for these insects is Glowworm Beetle. The females and larvae have bioluminescent organs. This one is a male, only the males have wings. A Western Corsair Bug, Rasahus thoracicus, a species of assassin bug. Unlike most of the other assassin bugs, the bite of the Western Corsair Bug can be extremely painful.
I have continued trying to photograph pollinators at Ajo Lily flowers. Paul Johnson and I sat out Sunday night for a couple of hours and despite what seemed like suitable conditions, we had no success. Last night it was very windy and cold. Tonight, the wind went down but it was still cool. I decided to try anyway and I’m glad I did! I’m also going to add some photos from a blacklight session last week. My old blacklight quit working and BioQuip (an entomology supply company) has gone out of business. So, I had to try something different. I bought a blacklight LED strip, about 3 feet long. It runs off a 12 volt battery. My only night testing it was also pretty cool, but it attracted plenty of insects, despite the chilly weather. I’m looking forward to more of that as the weather warms. As always, a larger image can be seen by right clicking on an image and opening in a new tab or window.
This is my favorite White-lined Sphinx image as it visits the Ajo Lily. One can see the proboscis extending into the flower tube. I used a hand-held remote shutter release instead of relying on the laser trigger, I was able to get more shots that way. I like this one too, the uppersides of the wings are more colorful. Now the moth is really getting into the pollen on the anthers. The stigma and style are just below the moth’s abdomen. Macaria deceptrix, larval food plant is Condalia.Zaleops umbrina, this is the only species of Zaleops found north of Mexico. Larval food plant is Catsclaw Acacia. Lithostege fuscata, there are very few records of this moth in BugGuide. It is restricted to deserts of California, Arizona and New Mexico. Not much else is known about it. Hemeroplanis incusalis, larval food plant is mesquites and other legumes. It has a wider distribution, in deserts and low mountains of Arizona, California and Nevada. My sister Susan asked the question, if the red spot on Lithostege fuscata was part of the moth or a parasite? I had passed it off as a red spot on the moth, but I took a closer look and indeed, it is a parasite!
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.
I finished up the astro season for March with only two more good nights. I sure hope April works better for that. Desert flowers continue to be great. Today, I found a species that I’ve been looking for since I first read about it in my Sonoran Desert Wildflowers book. It has been a target species for several years and I finally found it. Now I need to select a new target.
My target flower, Nemacladus glanduliferous (according to my book, other sources may have different taxonomy). Also known as Redtip Threadstem. What interested me was the diminutive flower, only about 1/8 inch across, a perfect target for my super macro MP-65 lens. As the flowers develop, they rotate 180 degrees, there is no known explanation or purpose for this. This image is taken with the MP-65 lens and a ring flash. Three greenish-yellow glands are on the ovary. The stamens are fused. Why the plant seems to be clasping the stamens and stigma with the two lower petals like this I do not know. Another nice find this morning was Desertsnow, Lenanthus demissus. I’ve only seen this flowering one other time, in the Ajo Mountains. Both times I’ve seen it, I’ve only seen one plant. A closer view of a flower of Desertsnow. NGC 4490, also known as the Cocoon Galaxy, is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. It is about 25 million light years from Earth. It interacts with its smaller companion NGC 4485 and as a result is a starburst galaxy. NGC 4490 and NGC 4485 are collectively known in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies as Arp 269. This is another of those very small galaxies that the C8 allows me to image. M66, one of the Leo Triplets. I’ve done this before and just added more exposure. It is a very colorful galaxy. Five supernova have been recorded in this galaxy.
Today I joined up with a group of botanists for a visit to the Sikort Chuapo Mountains. This area is east of Ajo, past the Burro Gap. There are few roads and much of the area is raw wilderness. We drove in on one of the few roads that access that area. Paul and Linda had camped there a few days ago, finding the area loaded with wildflowers. I took a lot of photos, some of the scenery and some of various flowers that I still haven’t identified. Those will have to be posted later, but for now, here is some scenery.
Spires of volcanic rock. Elevations on the tops of the mountains in this area are around 3000 ft. A typical scene, lots of Mexican Poppies, Owl Clover and lupines with Desert Chicory (the white flowers).Poppies on a hillside, lupines lower. More Lupines and Owl Clover and a forest of Chain Cholla in the background. The cholla forest was very impressive, some of the plants are 8 feet high. This large rock has no name on the map, but the locals call it Noah’s Ark. From Ajo, it does look somewhat like an ark but not from this angle. Looking west from a ridge. Look at all those patches of poppies out there! One could walk for miles. Right click on the image and one can see patches of blue too, lupines. One of the flowers I’ve identified, I’ve seen this one many times. Twining Snapdragon. Maurandella antirrhiniflora.
I finally got in a few nights of astrophotography. It is not looking good for more, so I thought I would go ahead and post these. I really like doing galaxies, they are so mysterious and distant, but enormous beyond our imagination. I am sure that somewhere in every galaxy there is intelligent life, but the distances are so great we will never know.
NGC 2903. This field galaxy is located about 30 million light-years away from the Milky Way and is a member of the Virgo Supercluster. A dwarf galaxy is visible below NGC 2903 and the two galaxies are interacting. From Wikipedia: It was discovered by German-born astronomer William Herschel, who cataloged it on November 16, 1784. He mistook it as a double nebula, as did subsequent observers, and it wasn’t until the nineteenth century that the Third Earl of Rosse resolved into a spiral form.M61, another of Charles Messiers “not a comet” objects. From Wikipedia: M61 was first discovered by Barnaba Oriani on May 5, 1779, six days before Charles Messier discovered the same galaxy. Messier had observed it on the same night as Oriani but had mistaken it for a comet. Its distance has been estimated to be 45.61 million light years from the Milky Way Galaxy.This is the Helix Galaxy, NGC 2685. It is about 50,000 light-years across and about 42 million light-years away from Earth. From our perspective, it is very small, faint and difficult to image. But I thought I would try it just to see what it looked like since it is a polar-ring galaxy. It is an object of great scientific interest, because polar-ring galaxies are very rare galaxies. They are thought to form when two galaxies gravitationally interact with each other. In my image, the polar ring is apparent.
