HAPPY NEW YEAR 2008

Wishing you a great 2008!

Well, I have a few pictures of the birds currently in residence at the Rancho. There are a few that I have yet to get a pic of but I will keep trying.



This young Black-chinned Hummingbird just took a drink from the flower. He was getting ready for the long flight south for the winter.







A White-breasted Nuthatch perches on the suet feeder.









A Ladder-backed Woodpecker also comes to the suet.








An autumn Robin sings in the late afternoon.





This is our "Sneaky Squirrel" who thinks he can't be seen as he waits for a chance to get on the suet. We had to move the suet feeder and put a dome over it to keep him off it. [This photo was featured on a local TV newscast by the weather man.]

This is a long shot of the 3 Sandhill Cranes that hang out in our neighborhood. We call them the Three Amigos. We live in a rural area with many farm fields for the winter visitors to hang out in. Canada Geese are also very prevalent in the fields. I passed one field a couple weeks ago and there were at least 100 geese and one Sandhill!

My goal is to get some really good photos of the Sandhills. They are so impressive in person.

I would like to get your comments so I know that someone is looking in and appreciates my work. Until next time. :-)

Autumn 2007

Greetings from Rancho Colibri!

I've been pretty negligent of this blog this year so here is a summary so far.

One thing different this year is my new camera. It is a Canon PowerShot S3 IS digital. It came with a whole box of goodies including wide-angle and telephoto lenses. So far I am still just learning about it's basic operations. It is 6.0 MP with 12X optical zoom. It does a hundred different things I have yet to learn but I love this camera! I have taken some really incredible photos with it. I am still perfecting the technique for birds and should be posting some of those soon. Meanwhile, enjoy my favorite butterfly photo.

Despite sightings in the area a couple weeks earlier, our Hummingbirds got here to the Rancho the second week of April. We didn't seem to have as many as in past years but still enough to keep us occupied. They raised about six babies as far as we could determine. They left around the first week of October.

Right after that we got our first "winter" birds, White-breasted Nuthatches. We also have both Downey and Ladder-backed Woodpeckers. Followed by White-crowned Sparrows. Then about a week ago we got a Mountain Chickadee. We haven't had one for a couple years. Yesterday three Juncos showed up in the patio around sunset! It is really exciting watching for all the newcomers. Also last week the migration of the Sandhill Cranes began. The annual Festival of the Cranes is in a couple weeks at the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge near Soccoro NM. We have also seen a couple Bald Eagles passing overhead just lazily drifting south over the Rio Grande.

Stay tuned...

HAPPY SPRING 2007!

21 March 2007. Today is the first day of Spring 2007, according to the calendar. But weather-wise, it has been Spring here since before the Groundhog said it would be early this year. And, to that point, here is the big news.

The Hummingbirds are here!

Yes, they have been spotted here in town (Albuquerque) over the past week or so. In fact, I was out working in the yard last week and swore that I heard a Broadtail hum overhead. I called the local Wild Birds Unltd. store to confirm this and she said yes, it is so. This is probably the earliest they have ever arrived here! (They are about one month early.)

My husband and I have been dreaming about them for the past few weeks. We just knew they would be coming early this year. In fact, he put out two feeders on Monday, just in case. We haven't had any come to the feeders yet, but we are watching them intently.

JUST A NOTE ABOUT THIS BLOG: I rather abruptly stopped blogging last summer. There were some problems with my computer connection and then other problems came up and I just didn't have time to continue the blog. I hope this was not any inconvenience for my regular, or not, reader(s). Anyway, I am back at it for this year. Happy Bird Watching!