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Monday, May 11, 2015

Different perspectives

All the hummers banded at CMO this morning hadn't been previously banded, which means they were new arrivals. So far no fledged hummers. Maybe it's been too cold for the nests to succeed yet. They'll keep trying. Possibly the new arrivals came to escape the impending summer heat at lower elevations. Anyway, a friend of Kelly's, also a licensed bander, got the honors of banding the hummers today, during which he mentioned that he was the only person in the world to band 3 Lucifer Hummingbirds today. Yup, sure is. Of course, they couldn't pay me enough to band a hummer. It's all in the perspective.

I usually photograph my patches of Woolly Paintbrush from the arroyo as I walk down it. Today I climbed up out of the arroyo and photographed this patch from the perspective of above looking down.


This female Rose-breasted Grosbeak showed up today. Eating mulberries transformed her into a rose-beaked grosbeak.


I was really craving to photograph an ode today, so zeroed in on this one. I haven't looked it up but I guess it's a Powdered Dancer. So far I haven't bothered with trying to catch one and scan it. Will one of these days. Just so busy.


I worked a while in the tank in spite of strong winds. Down in the tank it's not so windy.

Brian's mounted butterflies are works of art and he's certainly a master artist. Giant-Skippers are his favorites. Here are some Yucca Giant-Skippers that he raised from pupae collected this spring east of El Paso. (By one perspective, those larva might have become food for a bird if the bird hadn't gotten killed by a speeding car.) I think I read somewhere that one bird can consume hundreds of caterpillars a day.

Males on left, females on right.

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