Only 33 days left to wait

Al Hansen

Al Hansen

Well-known member
Seems to me that 33 days is just a little longer than a month and I think I can handle that. The excitement level has risen a notch or two down here just with some cooler weather settling in. The night time temps are now closer to 60F and it has been a week since we had temps in the low 100Fs. This was one of our hottest summers ever.

In the meantime lots has been going on. The hummers began their migration south around the 10th of July when the Rufous and Calliope hummers arrived. The adults stayed here until the end of July and headed out just as the female Rufous and juveniles came in. With such a hot summer and no rains in our area in July most of the hummers went to other parts and seemed to circumvent us. At our busiest time we still had enough birds here that took care of more than a gallon of nectar per day.

Our monsoon season normally starts right after the 4th of July. We never got any rain in July and the last one was in the beginning of April. I can sure see why the hummers found a different way to migrate. Lack of rain means no flowers and for sure not many insects and since they eat a lot of both I am just happy we had some here.

Adult female rufous

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Adult male black-chinned hummingbird

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What it looked like at one of the feeders

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We have had a pretty busy summer training Sonora. She is now 13 weeks old and quite a girl.

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Somehow she sure reminds me of Chaco!

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I had only tossed her favorite ball several times and she decided to take a break. So be it, I thought. Then I looked at the temp and it was 97F. I have great respect for her. She used common sense and I didn't.

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Some great news. I was looking at our calendar and saw that Bev had an eye appointment in Albuquerque on the 19th of September which meant there was no way I could go on an early teal shoot that Monday. Just this past Friday she got a call from their office and asked her if she could change the time from 10AM until 2:30PM? When she hung up she looked at me and said, "You can duck hunt on the 19th!" You don't know how lucky I am to have such a wonderful woman. That means that I can hunt every day of the 9 day season. There is much to look forward to.
Al
 
Hi Al! I always enjoy seeing your spectacular humming birds shots as it's the first sign of the migration each year! Glad to see that Sonora is coming along in her training. Hopefully timely rains will fill up all of your spots this year.
 
No pictures. But I stepped out on the back deck yesterday and stood next to the hummingbird feeder. I was standing still and one came to the feeder, turned and came the couple feet to me and hovered right in front of my face

Made me think of your great close ups
 
I enjoy your hummingbird and puppy photos.
Sonora is a cute one, looks like she is getting to that all paws and legs stage. Has she learned to cool off in the pond yet? :)

Tim
 
Al, great pictures, the one of the pup coming back with the ball still has me chuckling. Only thing holding off the anticipation of opening day here is fishing.
 
Al, great photos. My wife and I are always jealous of your hummingbirds, especially your photos of multiple birds at one feeder. Here in MA we only get ruby red throats and they are very territorial and aggressive toward one another. Thanks.

Best - Paul
 
Thanks, John. As for the questions I did keep pretty accurate figures on the number of clicks I had on the Canon 50D that I owned prior to buying the used Canon 7D that I now have. I was at 330,000 + clicks on that 50D when it started to finally get tired.

As for the pups, I have no idea but I'm sure Bev could tell you and or Uncle Sam. More importantly, we are very aware of our age but have never considered holding back from making a purchase on another pup/dog that we wanted to bring into our kennel to strengthen the lines by adding new blood. To be honest, we love what we do and would never consider slowing down.

Now I can begin training Sonora to add to my lineup when I go duck hunting. I already know when Habi will begin training her for the blind. That will be fun to watch.
Al
 
Hi Scott. I look forward to the hummer migration almost like I do with ducks. They are very special.

I appreciate your thoughtfulness about rain. Last year we didn't get a good rain until almost the end of Sept. That one was a dandy and provided some great duck hunts for me in the opening days of the latter part of October.
Al
 
Rick, I know just how you feel. Wait some day, if you use feeders, when a hummer comes to the window and hovers there trying to get your attention. When he/she has it, you will look at your feeders and find out that they are empty or not out yet. It has happened.
Al
 
I'm glad you liked them,Tim. We, too, have been noticing that a lot lately. So did our vet when we brought her in for her 12 week shots. I got a kick out of that.

So far, Sonora has only gone to the pond to get a drink. She does walk in the water but hasn't taken a dip like the others do. By the way, she is the first pup we have had in a long time that has gone out into the rain to go the bathroom. With rain such a rarity, most of our dogs won't go out in it if we finally get some.

Are you flying your birds?
Al
 
I appreciate the comments, Shawn. I don't blame you if the fish are biting or you just love being out on the lake. That is something I would love to do also but we do live in the desert.
Al
 
Thanks so much, Brad. Let me know when you are going to be here for a regional meeting. By the way, Tim has trained Maverick to retrieve his newspaper every morning. I remember when he told me when Mav made his first 200 yard retrieve. It was for his paper!
Al
 
Thank you very much, Paul. Here are a few more that I took last weekend. This time it was during the golden hour at sunset time. I still had some bright enough light with some pretty dark background.

By the way, our Rufous are very territorial just like your ruby throated.
Al

Paul, I was pretty close to these guys. There were lots of birds and since I have been working on getting them used to me, they didn't seem to mind.

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Every day I fly between 15 and 30 birds. I still have a couple on squab. I'll be sorting them in a month and probably flying some of them quite late into the fall. Shouldn't be much for hawks around here for at least another month. After that I might need a little help from them to scale back the numbers. They have bred well this summer.

Tim
 
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