The Desert and the Snow

One of the highlights of living on this corner of East Kent is that it sometimes plays host to interesting or unusual birds, particularly during the passage seasons of spring and autumn. Occasionally you might even get two such visitors in the same week, as happened recently with one rare bird and one not quite so rare (though no less charming). And better yet, neither of them were camera-shy.

The first was a Desert Wheatear (above) which spent several days foraging for insects on and around Joss Bay. On the day I went to see it, it was frequenting the edge of the cauliflower field overlooking the bay.

The all-black tail pattern (as compared to the T-shaped pattern of the more common Wheatear) is one of its main distinguishing features, but it can be difficult to see unless the bird is in flight (as shown below).

A few days after the Desert Wheatear departed, a Snow Bunting turned up on the stretch of coast between Dumpton Gap and Louisa Bay. Unlike the Desert Wheatear, Snow Buntings are annual winter visitors to the Kent coastline, though I usually have to go out to Reculver to see them.

This little bird was even more confiding than the Desert Wheatear, and not at all fazed by the people walking past and the array of lenses pointing at it. I had to back away from it several times just to keep it in focus.

Whereas the Desert Wheatear was feeding on insects, the Snow Bunting was foraging for seeds, using its beak to break open the husks.

Will we receive any more visitors before the end of the year? It has been a long time since I saw a Shore Lark, and a Lapland Bunting would be very welcome...

See also:

Birds of East Kent: Snow Bunting

More of my Desert Wheatear Photos on Flickr

More of my Snow Bunting Photos on Flickr

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Night Sky

Messier 13: The Great Hercules Globular Cluster

"For my part, I know nothing with any certainty but the sight of the stars makes me dream." – Vincent Van Gogh

First: apologies for the lack of posts recently. It turns out that "mapping Mars from my back garden" is a tough act to follow; also, the whole lockdown "thing" tends to put a limit on where you can go (on this planet at least).

On the plus side, I'm pleased to say I recently became a contributing writer for the astronomy website Love the Night Sky. If you're new to the hobby, or coming back to it after a break, this site has all the information you need to get up and running. Unlike many other astronomy-themed websites and YouTube channels (which tend to obsess about getting the perfect astrophoto with little or no information about the object being photographed), the emphasis here is on learning and observing: helping you find your way around the night sky, while enriching your experience with scientific and historical context. I've been observing for years, but it's that sense of there always being more to see and more to learn that keeps me coming back to the eyepiece again and again.

My first three articles (with more to follow) are available via the links below, covering some of the finest deep-sky objects you can see though a telescope. Each article explains what the object is, when to see it, how to find it, and what you can expect to see through telescopes of different apertures, as well as links to other sources of information.

M11: The Wild Duck Cluster

M13: The Great Hercules Globular Cluster (as shown in the image above)

M8: The Lagoon Nebula

All three of these objects are visible on summer nights, and you don't need a large telescope to see them. So, if the sky is clear and the stars are out, why not grab a pair of binoculars, turn your lights off, and enjoy the view? I could say more, but a certain very famous professor has already said it for me:

"Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious." – Stephen Hawking

UPDATE: More articles now available, as linked below:

M80: Globular cluster in Scorpius

M57: The Ring Nebula in Lyra

M72: Globular cluster in Aquarius

M77: Spiral galaxy in Cetus

M76: The Little Dumbbell Nebula in Perseus

M52: Open cluster in Cassiopeia

M37: Open cluster in Auriga

M78: Reflection nebula in Orion

M42 (and M43): The Great Nebula in Orion

Remember: a telescope doesn't take up space; it gives you space.