Ducks

Spotted first four, then later up to seven or eight, northern pintails at the Ice House Pond.  I think this might be a life bird for me.  I certainly haven't seen one here in Acton and think it is pretty unusual to see one at the Ice House Pond.

 

Lori and I were at Arlington Reservoir last weekend and saw my year's first buffleheads.  Cold and wind cut the morning short.  Lori and I made the best of it with a Chardonnay and Hollandaise brunch at Tryst in Arlington.

Beehive Open Cluster

 The constellation Cancer is hard to see.  The best bet is to find the Beehive Cluster first.  The Beehive is also known as Praesepe (Latin for manger or crib), or more technically, as Messier 44 (M44).  

The Beehive resides in Cancer, which is between Leo and Gemini.

The Beehive cluster: A swarm of 1,000 stars (earthsky.org)

There are approximately 1,000 stars in the beautiful Beehive cluster, which is an open cluster of stars in our galaxy. Open clusters are stars that are gravitationally bound and are created out of the same star-forming nebula, such as the stars in the Orion Nebula. The Beehive is one of the nearest open clusters to our sun and Earth. It has a larger population of stars than most other nearby clusters.

The Beehive’s distance is about 577 light-years from our solar system. The cluster shines at magnitude +3.7. If you use binoculars to see the Beehive, the brightest star you are seeing is 42 Cancri.

Golden-Crowned Kinglets

Lori and I have seen golden-crowned kinglets at the Ice House Pond each of the last several days.  Sometimes one, sometimes more.  The hooded mergansers, however, have been pretty scarce. Sometimes one or two, sometimes (surprisingly) none.

Neptune

 Not a bird, but something I need my binoculars to find.  Best view of the year for Neptune according to those who know.  Between Pleiades and Jupiter.

You need the map below + binoculars to find it.  Not much to see, but lots to think about.

Ice House Pond

 The hooded mergansers showed at Ice House Pond about 3-4 weeks ago.  There were eight of them for that first week.  They may still all be there, but I'm not seeing them.  Zero over the weekend, one male today.  I need to ramp up my visits.

Today I had my best ever look at a golden-crowned kinglet.  Three of them, in fact, and 15 minutes of close-up action.  One did have the orange tinge shown below.  The birds looked-great.