One of the joys of our stay in Colorado was the birds. We have put out bird seed and hummingbird feeders for years but never had the quantity of 'participants' we had in Creede. The hummingbirds quickly became dependent on our feeders and would become quite upset if the feeders ran dry. Here is an early morning shot of the crowd gathering.
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The hummingbirds were VERY accustomed to humans and would almost light on you. They would follow me as I prepared to refill the feeder and land on the feeder while it was in my hand (the one below is coming in for a landing) or sitting on the table! As they flew around your head (sometimes coming straight at you!) it took a lot of faith in their flying and navigation skills to not duck.
Here the feeder is just about standing (flying?) room only as there is only one empty landing post. We actually had every spot filled with more hummingbirds waiting in the air on holding patterns a few times. Their being so tame allowed me to get better closeups of them flying than I had previously.
We visited friends who managed a bird sanctuary on one of the days they were 'banding' ducks. Here I am preparing to release one of the mallards which had been captured for census taking/banding. She was already banded so she was recorded for the records and released.
Becky being given a lesson on how to tell the sex of waterfowl. This is a very good example of why you should not ask the question if you do not want to hear the answer. Needless to say we now know more than we ever wanted to on this subject.
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