Harlequin Duck - Now That's a Yard Bird 12/7/2019

   A crosstown move from a house on a mostly wooded acre to one on a larger lot with an unobstructed view of Lake Michigan, has already yielded a spectacular rarity in the form of an adult male Harlequin Duck.

  It's the first Harlequin Duck that I have found on my own and only the third that I have ever seen.  The other two were at my work a little over a mile up the road.

   Another benefit of the nearly treeless yard on the lake side of the house is that I can finally do some astronomy at home, rather than driving to the local state park.  The photo below shows the nearest spiral arm in our Milky Way Galaxy.  The skyglow on the right side of the frame is from my beloved employer, while the yellowish glow at the bottom of the photo is from my nearest neighbor to the west in WISCONSIN, 65 miles away.

   The next photo shows the constellation Orion rising over my house with the Pleaides star cluster near the top of the image.