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At the start of July, I left my home in La Ribera Mexico and started north for my annual trip to Montana. I had been at Arivaca Lake in April (see Arizona Hummers) and decided it was worth a second visit. I entered the US at Sonorita in south central Arizona. To refresh your memory, Arivaca Lake is about 30 miles north of Nogales, Arizona. It is a small 55 acre lake, 7 miles from the town of Arivaca, Arizona. In April it was loaded with birds, but what impressed me most was the large numbers of hummers. The bird life had not changed much except the birds were now raising their young. While there were not a large number of different species, there wasa lot of individuals. I hung up a single feeder and within an hour a dominate female Broad-bill took over the feeder and chased all other females away. Strangely she didn't drive off the males, regardless of specie. In the three days that I camped here I saw four different hummer species: Broadbill, Rufus, Broad-tailed, and Black-chinned. I sat up the hummer feeders in the same trees as in April and put out some orange halves for the orioles.
I photographed from a distance of 8 to 10 feet, without disturbing the birds. They seemed very fearless. Almost all of the shots were at 1/1000 sec at f 3.5 or so. I didn't use a fill-in flash, nor a neutral background, although I should have. |
Here are seven pictures of male Broad-bills.
Another interesting bird at Arivaca was the Summer Tanager.
A pair of Northern Cardinals.
Finally a Yellow-breasted Chat.
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