Cloudy over town early, becoming mostly sunny by mid-morning. In the 30s overnight with temperatures climbing to the 40s.
I expected it to be clear and quite frosty this morning, so I was surprised to see it looking overcast when I first woke up. As the sun rose, I could see it shining on the trees and mountains. Looking at satellite imagery later, I saw the patch of clouds had been mostly just right over town.
I think there was probably some frost overnight, but likely would have been much more if the clouds hadn’t formed.
By the time I got out later this morning, the clouds were mostly gone.
I walked to Swan Lake then Castle Hill. Overall, it was on the quiet side for birds. I did see my first Bufflehead of the fall at Swan Lake, though. I didn’t find any lingering or vagrant song birds.
I considered spending the afternoon on Harbor Mountain. I thought it might be my last chance to look for mosses and liverworts above tree line.
Instead I relaxed at home.
I actually laid out on the roof by the hummingbird feeder. It was out of the light wind and in full sun. I had my camera with me, thinking I would try for pictures of Anna’s Hummingbirds.
Unlike a few days ago, the birds were not coming so consistently. Today a (the?) male Anna’s Hummingbird was staying perched in the pine tree. Whenever another hummingbird came up to the feeder, he was chased them off and then returned.
From time to time he visited the feeder, but didn’t flash his gorget while I was taking pictures.
Though it was later in the afternoon, I was still thinking about going up Harbor Mountain. I didn’t have as much time to look for bryophytes, but I also wanted to see if it seeemed like a good place to get pictures of the comet.
I moved Kitty’s car from long-term parking. I had another day, but wasn’t sure what tomorrow would hold, so decided to just get it taken care of.
While walking along old airport road back to my car, I heard a bird calling as it flew over from the lagoon area over towards SEARHC. It sounded like a waxwing, but dropping in pitch as it trilled. I didn’t remember hearing Waxwings sound that way. There have been some Cedar Waxwings around, so I listened to recordings, but none of them had the drop in pitch.
The recording I listened to of Bohemian Waxwings did, however. I wanted to get visual confirmation of the identity if at all possible. I drove slowly around the SEARHC campus with my windows open checking the fruit-bearing trees. Unfortunately I didn’t refind it.
By this time it was late enough that I gave up on the idea of looking for bryophytes on Harbor Mountain before sunset. Instead, I spent some time parked in the city lot at Castle Hill and watched for birds. I did not see any.
It was after 5pm by the time I parked at the Harbor Mountain trailhead. I had 30 minutes or so until sunset. Actually, a few minutes longer, since I was at a higher elevation.
Near the top of the bowl, I saw a raptor flying over. I think it was probably a Red-tailed Hawk. Hopefully thought photos I managed will be sufficient to confirm.
As it turned out, it’s just as well that I didn’t go up Harbor Mountain earlier. Where I had wanted to go looking had enough snow to cause issues. Traction could have been a little sketchy (I hadn’t brought microspikes), and I suspect it would have been covering up a lot of what I wanted to look at.
I had hoped a green flash might be a possibility. Though much of the horizon was clear, there were clouds in line with where the sun was setting.
Based on yesterday’s experience, I figured I had an hour or so to wait before it was dark enough for the comet to show.
I set up my two cameras on tripods and let them do a timelapse of the fading light. I don’t know that I’ll do anything other than delete the images, but I’ll see how they turn out.
I went with the 35mm f/1.8 on the R5. It was wide enough to capture the scene I wanted. I might have preferred it be a little longer, but the extra light provided by the wide aperture more than made up for it.
As the cameras did their thing, I waited and tried to stay warm.
At one point I walked down the trail to the switch back. While standing there, I saw the silhouette of an owl as it flew up and landed nearby. I am pretty sure it was a screech owl, but when I turned my phone flashlight on for a better look, it took off. I tried whistling, but it didn’t call in response. I did see it loop over me once, though.
While there, I also saw a bright meteor flash and split in two as fell and then faded.
I saw the waning gibbous moon rising to the north of Harbor Mountain’s peaks. My cameras were otherwise occupied, or I probably would have tried to take photos.
It was nearly 8pm when I called it good from my perch above bowl. I walked back to my car and stopped at the overlook before the picnic area. It had a nice view of Mt. Edgecumbe and the comet, so I took some more pictures from there before finally headed down the road nearly four hours after I had come up.
As I write this, I haven’t had a chance to do more than quickly scan through my photos. I have several hundred to go through (the downside to have the interval timers going for over an hour). Based on what I’ve seen, I’m sure I’ll find a few that I think are decent.
I already know I kind of messed up on a bunch of them. I had the 24-105mm lens on the R7. I had set it up when there was still enough light to focus. I didn’t have it at it’s widest setting. As it turned out, that was unfortunate. Had it been on the widest setting, I think it would have started capturing the comet. As it was, there were 200+ shots with the comet out of frame.
I tried zooming out and getting it going again. I managed one decent photo, then must have bumped the focus ring or something. For some reason, the camera didn’t seem to be showing the exposure simulation in the viewfinder, so I couldn’t see a star to focus on. Since I knew the comet was showing up on the R5, rather than try to figure it out in the cold and dark, I called it quits with the R7.
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
