May 18, 2023

Red Rubber Ball
Oro Valley, Arizona
2023

I’m not planning on posting any more hummingbird photos, right now anyway. But towards the same end of the size spectrum, and certainly very competitive in terms of the cute factor given its bright color, here’s a photo of a vermilion flycatcher taken in the same tree as yesterday’s hummingbird photo.

When I see a vermilion flycatcher posed like this I can’t help but think of the song “Red Rubber Ball” recorded by the Cyrkle back in 1966. I did not know until searching for the song on Google just now that it was actually written by Paul Simon (with Bruce Woodley of The Seekers), but he and Art Garfunkel never record it on a studio album, although a recording of a live performance in 1967 appears on their “Old Friends” anthology album released in 1997.