Here is our first entry for this season. Well, last Wednesday (4/9), our first Black-chinned Hummingbird male arrived! Then, on Saturday, a second male arrived. So now it begins--the Hummingbird Wars! We are really so excited to have our favorite birds, the Colibri, return.

Also on the Rancho we have nesting pairs of Mourning Doves, Red-winged Blackbirds, American Robins and American Roadrunners (the state bird of New Mexico!) plus the usual House Finches and House Sparrows. We also have 2-3 brown Chickens that visit our yard everyday. They hang out with the Pigeons (Rock Doves) and feed on the ground under the bird seed feeders. Speaking of doves, we also had a White-winged Dove arrive last week. I haven't seen it for a couple days. Last Friday it was on the power lines cooing and that was the first time I'd ever heard its call.

About a month ago, we had an invasion of Robins. One morning we counted at least 30 of them sitting in the trees around us. But now we just have the residents left. On 3/30 we also were visited by Cedar Waxwings for the first time (that we noticed). They were so beautiful and so sweet sounding. They travel in flocks and we counted about 20 in our tree. We hope they will return next year. Also, this day, we spotted a "new" dove which turned out to be a rare visitor here. It was a Ringed Turtle Dove, which, according to all our field guides, is only found in the Los Angeles basin area! So, we were really excited about this. It was here for at least 3 days and we got it on video tape for proof!

We are also awaiting the return of the Lesser and American Goldfinches in their full color. We had five Lessers hanging around through the winter and they were just getting their new color when we last saw them a few weeks ago. The usually return after the babies are born.