Ahh...Autumn In The AZ Mountains

You made me so berry happy
I'm so glad you came into my life...

I put blood, sweat and tears into this blip.  :-)
Oh, and I reprocessed yesterday's blip photo from crappy to pretty decent.  

In general, there are two groups of people who hang out in the wildlife area of Madera Canyon. First there are annoying birders.  Then there are friendly photographers. 

Warning: The following may bore some of you to death! 
I admit to not knowing everything but what I do know, I know well. 
Apparently, yesterday a woman got a blurry photo which a "well-respected" birder identified and confirmed it as a Ruby-throated hummingbird. If true, it  would be the first sighting of a Ruby in southeastern Arizona (perhaps even in all of the southwest!!!)  Word spread like wildfire.  There must have been 25-30 birders there today during the four hours I spent in the canyon, all waiting with baited breath to see the elusive Ruby-throated hummingbird.

Hummingbird folks know that the Ruby's range is basically from the Mississippi eastward and that they migrate over the Gulf of Mexico.  Now, I'm not so closed minded or full of myself not to recognize that every now and then a vagrant of any species of bird can pop into the area.  In this case, however, I would wager $100 (or all of Naturelover's winnings ) that blurry photo was misidentified.  

I asked the two birders who were sitting next to me (while I stood) if they had seen any Broad-tailed, Magnificent, Rufous, Lucifer or Blue-throated hummingbirds.  Sure, they had seen the first three but seemed unfazed by the experience.  Based on their unremarkable response to our unique hummers I figured they were locals, which would explain their intense desire to see the Ruby.  THE ENTIRE GROUP WAS FROM FREAKING OHIO!!  

There's one bird on the top of every birder's SE Arizona life list. So just to tick the crowd off before I walked away I blurtd out, "There it is! Dang, it was too fast and I missed it!"  I told them it had been an Elegant Trogan.  They got quite upset at having missed it.  *tee hee*

After having gotten my revenge on the meanies, I walked over to the bushes where I caught this little gal and talked to a couple of super nice local photographers.  He gave me a lot of settings tips for my Canon 7D Mark II (which I still can't lift) and I gave his wife a white towel to cover her camera which had gotten quite hot.  I loved being able to leave with a smile on my face.