Another day, another 1/4 inch of rain. Today’s storm actually approached us from the north — don’t see that too often this time of year. I wish I had gotten a photo of it as it came across the valley. It was a big wall of black cloud, very ominous looking, with a dome in the clouds where the rain was.
I started pondering the fact that we have rufous hummingbirds here in droves now (started 3 or 4 weeks ago), but we never see them on their way north. After some web searching I learned that they travel through the Mexican state of Sonora, starting in January/February, for their northward migration, and then up the US west coast, arriving in their breeding territory by late April. Some go as far as Alaska! Theirs is the longest bird migration of all when measured in body length: 48.6 million body lengths of distance. — I would have to travel more than 2 times around the earth to match that comparable distance; and the hummers do it twice a year. Can you wrap your brain around that? I can’t. — Which explains why they set out so early, and that explains why they don’t fly through New Mexico on their way north. It’s far too cold and there’s nothing to eat! But many of the rufous travel back to Mexico by the Rocky Mountain flyway, and those are the ones we are seeing here, obviously.
I’m feeling less inclined to judge the rufous hummingbirds for hogging the feeders!