Fun Alpine day!

My largest group ever, 44 Texas Master Naturalists, visited my ponds in Alpine today. I thought it would be a bit boring for them, but it wasn't. They loved the hummingbird feeders. In East Texas they only see Ruby-throateds. We had about 6 species here: Calliope, Rufous, Broad-tailed, Black-chinned, Allen's (Merlin heard but we couldn't confirm), and Lucifer, which someone said they saw, but I didn't, so I figured they were mistaken, until I looked at my photos later and saw one on them. My eyes are bad and when I'm looking through my camera lens, I can't always tell what I'm photographing. Merlin also ID'd Ruby-throated, but if there were any here they were females... very hard to ID from photos.

Lucifer juvenile male

For me, the highlight of the day was when they found a plant by one of my ponds that was new to me....  Whorled Milkweed (Asclepias verticillata)! And if that wasn't exciting enough, they informed me it had the world's smallest bees on it! I'm not sure of the species, but it's probably some kind of Fairy Bee.

Calliope Hummingbird female

In other news, the oasis got a big monsoon last night, and I couldn't go down and check it out because I was expecting the group of naturalists this morning. I'll go down early tomorrow evening. Life comes at me fast sometimes. Hard to juggle it all. I'm sure all the tanks will be full, just don't know what damage there will be. Monday Mike Dory is coming to help, so we should be able to handle things.

Last time I was down there I found some rather fresh bear scat. It was wonderful that it didn't contain any feeder seed, just persimmon seeds. The feeders really are bearproof, finally.