Cosmic Strings

Today I saw my first Pine Siskins at my feeder in months. They are probably
just passing though migrating to where ever they go.

Today’s sightings at my feeder were:
Pine Siskin 10
Dark-eyed Junco 8
Scrub Jay 2
Band-tailed Pigeon 1
House Finch 3
Anna’s Hummingbird 3 females
Black Phoebe 1
Western Bluebird 2 (male and female)
Acorn Woodpecker 2
White-breasted Nuthatch 3
Oak Titmouse 2
Golden-crowned Sparrow 3
Lesser Goldfinch 4 (2 male, 2 female)
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 1
Spotted Towhee 1

Today between 1 and 2pm I managed to squeeze a little time to wander around my
house again to seek birds. It started pretty slowly (nothing hopping around in the fruiting elderberry bushes here – which is unusual this time of year). Best sighting today was finally discovering a nest hole for the acorn woodpeckers that are constantly here. I watched woodpeckers wander in and out of the hole for 20+ minutes.

Other birds sighted:

Band-tailed Pigeon 2
Turkey Vulture 2
American Crow 6
Scrub Jay 3
Lesser Goldfinch 4 (1 male, 3 female)
House Finch 2 (male + female)
Western Bluebird 2 (male + female)
Golden-crowned Sparrow 3
Dark-eyed Junco 20+
Acorn Woodpecker 3
Yellow-rumped Warbler 1
Oak Titmouse 3
White-breasted Nuthatch 2
Anna’s Hummingbird 1 female

Two days ago while driving through Grant Park I saw 2 white-tailed kites, which I rarely see down there (though I think this pair nests there because I see them regularly).

Two years ago I endeavored to learn about the local wildflowers around Lick Observatory. I headed out with a digital camera and took pictures of every flower I could find while hiking around the mountain and driving down Mount Hamilton Road. Now that some of the spring flowers are starting to bloom I’m going to head out again to see if I can find flowers I’ve never seen before and get better pictures of the ones I have. It never ceases to amaze me how many wildflowers are around here that I’ve never seen before. Anyway, you can see the Mount Hamilton wild flowers I’ve managed to photograph so far (more will surely come sometime in the future). I’ve also added a link to the wild flower pictures that Henry Coe State Park put on line. Many of the flowers are also seen on Mt. Hamilton, but some are only seen at the lower altitudes of Coe Park.

Here I am at the telescope waiting for the rain to stop so I can actually look at something astronomical instead updating the blog. One of the things astronomers have to make peace with is the weather. Telescope time is meted out to various different observers and there are no rain dates if the weather is bad. This was disappointing earlier this week when we wanted to observe Jupiter’s moon Io while it was in eclipse to see if we could measure the infrared emission of the active volcanoes on its surface without any confusing reflected sunlight. Sadly, it poured rain and there was no telescope action. Maybe tonight the weather will clear and we can do something….

Why am I starting a blog? For a couple reasons really, but originally I hadn’t even thought
of writing a blog until a friend set up this site for me. That pushed me over the edge to
actually doing something (and a long night at the 3m Shane Telescope gave me time to think
about this). I figure that my life on Mount Hamilton, home of Lick Observatory, might
have some interesting tidbits for others that are published nowhere else, such as little known bits of the Observatory history or the flora and fauna of Mount Hamilton.

Check out the HamCam to see what the view is like right now from Lick Observatory.