Hummingbird Banding

July 25, Saturday

Today I began an adventure that I have wanted to do for a long time: bird banding! I was fortunate that Pat was willing to go with me, even though she just got back from Florida. We drove to Paradise for the second time this summer. We left around 9:00 am and tried to stop at Picacho Peak to get gas, but everything was closed due to a power outage. We therefore drove to Tucson for gas - to Cortaro Road, which turned out to have easy access on and off the freeway. Our next stop was in Willcox at the Coronado Vineyards for lunch. I thought it would be interesting to try their lunch menu, and it turned out to be pretty good. I had a ham & brie sandwich that was delicious. Here is Pat outside the winery/restaurant, with a view of the vineyard in the background:

After lunch, we checked out "Peach Mania" at Apple Annie's Orchard, (Exit 340 off Hwy-10) where you can pick your own fruit. At 94 degrees, this was perhaps not the best day to be out picking our own peaches, but we decided to got for it anyway. We managed to pick several dozen before giving up - here we are in action:


After picking fruit, we enjoyed some of the homemade ice cream (peach cobbler flavor) that they were making outside at the festival. Later, we stopped at the Crop Circle Winery. The outside of this building is not impressive, but the inside is nicely decorated with antiques. As for the wine, well, we didn't buy any, even though I especially like the "alien" artwork on the labels.

While we were inside the winery, the heavy doors blew open and a big storm moved in. We later encountered it on the freeway, where we were deluged by rain and hail. Many cars were pulling off the road, but I was behind a tractor-trailer, and could see its tail-lights and just kept slowly following it. It was a scary 10 minutes or so, until we passed through the worst of it. In an odd twist of fate, the gas station at San Simon also had a power outage - what are the chances?!? This is the last normally-priced place to get gas before getting to Rodeo, so we were forced to go there for it. Here is literally the last gas station on our route at Rodeo, where the price was $3.21 a gallon, and where they have to turn on the pump when you drive up:


After getting gas, we headed towards our destination, with one eye on the rain - there was a huge wall-of-rain that seemed to be following us. We arrived at the George Walker House around 4:00 pm, and were greeted warmly by Jackie and Winston, the owners. Thanks to the rain, it had cooled off to about 70 degrees, so it was pleasant to sit out on the screened porch and watch the birds at the feeders. Our favorite bird today was the Rufous Hummingbird, which glowed a bright orange, just like in this photo.

We ended the day by watching the "bat drop," and this time saw perhaps 50-75 bats emerge for the evening.

July 26, Sunday

When I woke up this morning, the first thing I saw was a mouse on the wardrobe in my room. While I don't like mice at all, it did solve the mystery about all the noises I had been hearing during the night! The day began at 5:00 when we got up and had breakfast before the banding began. We reported to Jackie's porch at 6:00 to begin the process of assisting in the research done by the Hummingbird Monitoring Network.

The first step of the process is to net hummingbirds in order to take measurements. Here is one of the nets that was set up to capture the birds. It was Jackie's job to drop the net, and she was very skilled at it:

After a hummingbird is captured and retrieved in a tiny individual net, it is taken to the banding table where biometrics (age, gender, wingspan, etc.) are done on each hummingbird. At the banding table below, Lee (citizen-scientist) examines the plumage and pattern of a Black-Chinned Hummingbird (BCHU is its research code). He then puts a very tiny, numbered band on it - too small to see without magnifying glasses:

Pat records the data as Lee gives her the information:

The final measurement is the weight. The bird is wrapped in a small piece of fabric and weighed. This one weighed 2.9 ounces:

Then hummingbird is held and given a drink of sugar water before being released:

Last but not least, the bird is released - this is the fun part. Richard laughed when he found out that this was my "job" in the process (the easiest part). It actually takes months of training, and banding 100 birds, to become qualified as a citizen-scientist to do hummingbird banding. Maybe someday I will be able to take this training, but for now, I enjoyed just releasing the bird. I could feel its heartbeat and watch it breathing! Pat took this photo incredibly quickly, as the bird flew off immediately:

Later on, Pat also released a bird. If you blink, you'll miss this video of her releasing a Black-Chinned Hummingbird. You can see how very anxious it was to split:

Our fourth hummingbird capture was a Broad-Billed one. Pat watches as Lee does measurements on a it. This species is coded as BBHU for the research study.

This Broad-Billed Hummingbird was much more cooperative, sat there for quite a while, and actually had to be encouraged to fly off:

The banding project ended by 11:30. In total, we banded 4 hummingbirds and observed a total of 10 at the feeders - pretty minute numbers compared to the abundance of hummers in May. I guess the hummingbirds in the Chiricahuas disappear about this time of year, and then return in larger numbers in August - go figure! After the banding was done, we set off to have lunch at the Portal Cafe. Once again, we had the Mexican food, which wasn't bad. I had a taco salad and Pat had a smothered burrito.

We then meandered down to Dave Jasper's bird yard, and were sad to see it completely empty of birds and bird seed. We had great luck there in May, but not this time.

Next we visited the Chiricahua Desert Museum, a fascinating new herpetology museum and gift shop. I had visited there in June with Richard, and wanted Pat to see it. Of course, I succumbed to the temptation to buy some merchandise (2 bat sculptures).

On the way back from the museum, we saw a wall-of-rain shower, like one we saw the day before in this area. This photo doesn't capture that wall-of-water effect, but you can still see the storm clouds:

We made a stop at Cave Creek Ranch, and were treated to a guided tour of two of the cabins, the Stone Cottage and the Ranch House. Here is a view of the central courtyard:


July 27, Monday

Even though we were heading home today, there was still time to goof off on the way back. We made a stop at Colibri Vineyards so that I could show Pat where it is. It is in a fairly isolated spot called East Whitetail Canyon. We stopped by a private home to look at all the bird feeders and met the residents there, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor. Mr. Taylor was out watering his yard when we stopped on the road, and I'm sure he wondered what we were doing. I said hello and that we were birders. He is not only a birder, but also owns a birding tour company called Borderland Tours. He invited us into his yard to see a nesting Violet-Crowned Hummingbird that was just amazing. We stayed there a while and watched the hummingbirds at his feeders. I think we saw more there than we did the previous two days, but still there were not large numbers.

Back on the interstate, we made a stop at Fort Bowie Vineyards. They have a good Sangiovese and also the best homemade fudge I've ever had - my favorite was the pistachio flavor.

Our next stop was the historic downtown area of Willcox. Here I am at the old train depot:

Jackie told us about a good restaurant in Willcox called Big Tex Bar-B-Que, so we decided to check it out. Turns out, it was not only great, but also located inside a old dining car:

After lunch, we headed back to Exit 340 (Fort Grant Road) and Apple Annie's Orchard. Our first stop was the u-pick orchard, where we picked gala apples. We bought some freshly made apple pie and apple bread as well. The apple bread is especially delicious! We then drove another few miles to the other Apple Annie's location that sells every other kind of produce except apples and peaches. At this other produce location, everything is already picked - yeah! I'm afraid I went a little overboard on the fresh produce - I bought a watermelon, green beans, squash, sweet corn, and cucumbers. We left the Willcox area around 3:00, got home around 6:00, and managed to avoid the Valley's rush hour for the most part...