August 23rd in the Davis Mountains

Today was beautiful. Nice temps and plenty of hummingbirds! We saw: Broad-tailed, Broad-billed, Lucifer, Ruby-throated (just coming through now), Black-chinned, Magnificent, Rufous and Calliope. 8 species today! Quite a thrill! Plus, we have Lesser Goldfinches and Black-headed Grosbeaks with young. One of the highlights of the day, was seeing a Cooper's Hawk getting dive-bombed by about 6 Barn Swallows.

Big Bend National Park

After our visit to Gage Gardens, we headed to Big Bend for the night. August is a wonderful time to visit the park. Very few people. Lots of wildlife and moderate temperatures most of the time (not this year though!) The Basin did get a little bit of rain and is getting greener... the desert is dry dry dry and hot hot hot! We saw an immature scissortail flycatcher at Sam Nail Ranch and young scaled quails, but that is about it. The windmill was not going, so there was only a little pond of stagnant water. More photos follow.....

The Gage Gardens

We had a wonderful time at the Gage Gardens this weekend. There are easy walking paths winding through acres of beautiful blooming flowers and trees. Even in the heat of the day we spotted western tanagers, Say's phoebes and barn swallows. We saw a zone-tailed hawk fly overhead and we found a Louisiana waterthrush lurking in the undergrowth. If you are in Marathon, visit the gardens. You won't regret it. Here are a few photos from our visit.

Summer in the Davis Mountains

Well, it has been hot and dry in the Davis Mountains this year. We did get a bit of rain last week, which brings our total rainfall this year to 8 inches - not much. Even that little bit of rain has the grasslands turning green and the trees are finally leafing out. We have many hummingbirds, painted buntings, black-headed grosbeaks, lesser goldfinches and acorn woodpeckers. Keeping the seed and hummingbird feeders filled is almost a full-time job!

Big Bend & Gage Gardens

A day in the Davis Mountains

Another gorgeous day here in the Davis Mountains. We are at 5,800 feet and we are having lovely sunny days in the 70s. We are still seeing the Violet-crowned hummingbird that showed up more than a week ago. And even rarer for us we have a female Cardinal coming to our water source. We are still seeing Rufous, Anna's and Broad-tailed hummingbirds as well as one Allen's. More and more Juncos are coming to stay and Pine Siskins are everywhere.