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Disconnect
Oro Valley, Arizona
2023

Bare Tree #95
Tombstone, Arizona
2023

I like the way the shadow branches line up with the actual branches on the tree hanging over the other side of the building like it was all one big tree.

Lonely Too Long
Tombstone, Arizona
2023

The Runner
Oro Valley, Arizona
2023

The Cooper’s hawk in yesterdays POTD seemed to prefer the neighbor’s bird feeder in the front of the house we were staying at, while this similar looking sharp-shinned hawk spent it’s time lurking about our bird feeder in the back yard. (Note: I’m reasonably sure these were not the same bird and not of the same species. However, I’m somewhat less sure I’ve identified the correct species in both cases.) We never saw either bird actually successfully snag a song bird at the feeders, but we did see this one latch onto a finch at one point. After a brief wrestling match, the finch was able to escape and fly away.

I lived in Arizona for four years back in the 70s and I don’t remember ever having as much fun watching local birds back then as we did in just two months this year. Maybe bird watching is more of a “sport” for the old folks.

Fun With Birds
Oro Valley, Arizona
2023

At the other end of the size spectrum of birds around the place we were staying in Arizona, is this Cooper’s Hawk. It was sitting in a tree above the neighbor’s birdfeeder when I was out in the driveway one morning. Presumably it was scoping out the small birds at the feeder for a quick breakfast. Not sure what kind of hawk it was, I used the great Merlin phone app to identify it’s call. The app will record the call and try and identify the bird and it also gives a number of recordings by others to listen to for comparison. Just for fun I started playing some of the calls of other Cooper’s Hawks while holding the phone up where this one might hear it. Boy did I get it’s attention, to the point that it eventually made several flying passes right above me trying to figure out where the hawk was that was calling out. That was really cool but I quit doing it pretty quickly for a couple of reasons. One, I thought what I was doing might be considered some sort of bird torment. But I also stopped because those claws looked pretty sharp up close and I didn’t want to see if it would decide to use them on me out of frustration or protection of territory.

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.

Hummer #4
Oro Valley, Arizona
2023

I put this image in this collection mainly to show that it is in fact possible to photograph hummingbirds “in the wild” rather than at a feeder. Granted, they’re typically further away–this one was in a tree about 30′ away–so it takes a long telephoto plus a generous amount of cropping to get it done. But it’s doable, thanks in larger part to the current availability of some really good camera sensors as well as software for processing.

Hummer #3
Oro Valley, Arizona
2023

Hummer #2
Oro Valley, Arizona
2023

At one point I thought I might try to identify the different species of hummingbirds that were visiting our feeder in Arizona. While it’s in my nature to research such things to learn more about them, in the case of the hummingbirds I made the decision to simply enjoy them rather than analyze them. That’s worked pretty well for me so far, but I’m still tempted to do the ID thing, and probably will one of these days.

Hummer #1
Oro Valley, Arizona
2023

We hung a small hummingbird feeder on at the place we rented in Arizona in January and February, and were quickly rewarded with much company to entertain us while sitting on the patio. I’d sit out there in the afternoons with a cup of tea and my camera and telephoto lens taking way too many photos of them.