Saturday, December 24, 2011

Happy Holidays - Hummingbird Fever!

While the rest of the country may be experiencing freezing temperatures for the holidays, we here in the Sonoran Desert are enjoying the best part of our year. As Matthew James Price shows, even the migratory hummingbirds enjoy spending the winter months in southern Arizona.

According to the Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory, though there are a few hummingbirds that stay all year in the warmer parts of our state, most of the hummingbird species that make southern Arizona so special arrive in April or May and leave by early October. You'll find the most spectacular diversity of hummingbirds during the late summer rainy season, when local nesters overlap with Mexican species following the rains northward as well as northern nesters on their way south into Mexico. In a week of birding in southern Arizona between late July and early September, it's possible to find up to 15 species of hummingbirds, more than you'll find in any other part of the United States.


Hummingbird Fever! from Matthew James Price on Vimeo.

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