THEY'RE HERE! Yup, the Rufous Hummers have arrived! The first one showed up on Monday, July 12th. A couple days later we noticed a "Grampa" -- one who is completely rust colored on his back. There appear to be at least 3 of them, Grampa, a male and a female or juvenile. So now the war has begun! What great excitement.
 
BABIES.  We have noticed the first hummer babies (Black-chinned), nestmates who share the tube feeders. Then there are the Lesser Goldfinch babies who are learning to use the upside-down thistle feeder. This tube feeder requires the bird to hang upside-down to reach the opening. Only finches will do this and therefore it discourages any other bird from feeding there. They are so cute! Yesterday, we watched the Western Kingbirds teaching their young'uns how to catch bugs in the air. That was really was fun.  Of course, we have the Roadrunner juveniles terrorizing the other birds with their threat of nest raiding. Things are really picking up now with babies all over the place learning how to fly and feed themselves.
 
The Chicken hens are off their nests since I removed their eggs last week. We are watching them closely so we can spot when the begin nesting again, so we can get the eggs as soon as they are laid.
 
We are finally getting our monsoon rains in the late afternoons/evenings and that is really helping with our local drought.  Unfortunately, the temperatures are still in the nineties which is harder to bear with the higher humidity. Oh well, beggars can't be choosey. We are very glad to get the rain.
 
TTFN, until next time.  ~~SDA