Solar Halos
Saturday, January 28, has been a good day for solar halos. First at around 8 then I saw another about 90 minutes later and a complete halo at about 11:30. In the late afternoon, I went back out in search of halo and was not disappointed. Halos like these are produced by reflections off of ice crystals high in the atmosphere. Likewise, sundogs and solar pillars and their moon counterparts are created by ice crystals and always appear fairly close to the Sun. Rainbows and fogbows, on the other hand are created by reflections and refractions of light in liquid water droplets and always happen on the opposite side of the sky from the light source.
- Halo from Cook’s Landing
- Halo from Immanual Baptist Church
- Halo from Wellington Lakes
- Halo from St. Vincents West
- Almost Complete Halo
ASCA Field Trip to Lake Dardanelle and Holla Bend NWR
I joined the Audubon Society of Central Arkansas for their usual January field to these two winter hotspots. We saw 66, I think, species of birds for the day including five species of gull (only one species is truly common in Arkansas). It was cold and never really warmed up until late in the day but we had a good time.
- Thayer’s Gull
- Red-tailed Hawk
- Harris’s Sparrow
