Bird Watching with Violet

Our beautiful 12 year old neice, Violet was in Phoenix visiting her grandparents for about a month this summer and we were lucky enough to have her come and spend the weekend with us. On Saturday, Aug 29, we went took her down to Patagonia to look at the lake down there and go bird watching. Looking at the lake was Jims reason to go down there, bird watching was mine. Poor Violet didn't know what she was in for. My mom had told me about a bird sanctuary she had read about in the Birds and Bloom magazine and supposedly they have 25 different kinds of hummingbirds that come through there. Jim and I had never been to that part of Arizona so it was a great day trip.

Patagonia Lake.

These are either Rufous or Allens hummingbirds. I'm not quite sure how to tell them apart. The bird sanctuary had 4 big feeders up that attracted quite a few hummers. There was probably about 20 coming and going at any one time.

The turkey vultures kept their eyes on us thinking we just may pass out in the heat.

There was lots of butterflies and millions of grasshoppers.

Ahhh, theres a bird but it heard us coming.

There has got to be some more birds out here.

But there was a limit to how much patience they had for me taking photos. It was 100 degrees out and we walked quite a ways. They were great sports and maybe, just maybe, they enjoyed it a little bit.