by Matthew Jaffe, Sunset senior writer
Around my backyard, they’re known simply as “the guys.” The guys are hummingbirds, three species to be exact—Allen’s, Rufous, and Anna’s—and ever since putting up a feeder a few years back, I have become somewhat obsessed with them.
Hummingbirds get a bad rap. That is to say their main habitats tend to be doilies, Seals & Crofts songs, and needlepoint pillows, where they are portrayed as delicate, ethereal creatures. In reality they’re gram-for-gram the toughest and meanest little gangstas ever to hit a garden. Watch a feeder or a particular flower, and it’s a constant battle for turf and food: if humans ate as much as hummingbirds, we’d consume 155,000 calories a day.
Like I said, I’m obsessed.
Last week, my wife Becky and I headed to southeast Arizona, which in August is to hummingbirds and birders alike what the upcoming Bumbershoot is to music fans. There’s even a festival down here this week: the 17th annual Southwest Wings Birding & Nature Festival.
So what’s all the fuss about? The canyons of the Huachuca Mountains are the best places in the country to see hummingbirds. Thanks to monsoon rains and migratory patterns, with a bit of luck and lots (and lots) of patience, you have the theoretical chance of seeing 15 different species here come August.
This has been a particularly good year for the monsoons—sometimes called Arizona’s fifth season—and nearly 15 inches of rain had fallen where we were staying at the Ramsey Canyon Inn. Ramsey Creek ran high and even areas outside the canyon were remarkably green and dotted with wildflowers.
We didn’t catch any monsoon rains but temperatures stayed in the 80s, a huge contrast with Phoenix, which cooled off all the way to a frigid low of 96 one night while we were there.
That wasn’t the only surprise. Now I don’t pretend to be a hummingbird expert but I figured I could make a quick study of the different species here. First things first: it helps to have binoculars. And I forgot mine. (We won't even talk about the inadequacy of my photo equipment.) Then as I began to meet more serious birders, who were making identifications not only between individual species but also within various categories including juveniles and individuals that were molting, I realized that my hummingbird knowledge, such as it is, doesn’t extend much past my patio.
Fortunately we had arranged to go out with a guide on our second day and naturalist Mark Pretti helped save us from a potential summer hummer bummer. Within our first half hour with Mark, we identified seven different species, and by the end of the day picked up an eighth, with a quick glimpse of a Lucifer Sheartail, the second smallest hummingbird found in the United States.
As it turned out, the hummingbirds were only part of our discovery. We learned how the Huachuca range is a meeting ground of Rocky Mountain environments and the sub-tropical habitats of Mexico’s Sierra Madre, and how two different deserts, the Sonoran and the Chihuahuan, converge in this part of Arizona too.
For that matter, Arizona has 1,000 native bee species and one of the birds we spotted, the Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher, spends a portion of its year in the western Amazon.
Amazing what a big (and small) world there is beyond my backyard.
(HUMMINGBIRD PHOTOS BY ALAN & ELAINE WILSON AT www.naturespicsonline.com)
