A few unwonted days of cool weather and rain–rain!–have made this one of the most pleasant late Mays I can remember in Tucson. The birds have enjoyed it, too, and our feeders are going great guns. Fist-sized Gambel’s Quail chicks have joined their parents and foster parents in guzzling down the overflow beneath the thistle feeders, and Anna’s, Costa’s, and Black-chinned Hummingbirds are now constant at the sugarwater.

The neighborhood Harris’s Hawks obviously have young in the nest. I don’t know where this year’s aerie is, but every day we see the adults overhead with food, flying across the road and down the wash to what is no doubt a very noisy homecoming.

And even as everybody else is busy getting a brood off, the Purple Martins–our latest arrival among the swallows–have just started to trickle in. Yellow-billed Cuckoos and Sulphur-bellied Flycatchers will be hard on their heels, and with them, summer will be complete.

Gambel’s Quail chicks have been scurrying around for a couple of weeks now in our neighborhood, and these cool and rainy days (how often do I get to use that phrase in Tucson in May!?) have brought them in to the feeders, hitherto the exclusive domain of loafing or unpaired adults. This afternoon a female brought seven teenagers–whether all her own or a combined creche, I don’t know–in to munch on the thistle seed.

The seed is oily and rich, of course, so everybody needed a drink, too.

I wasn’t certain what would happen when the female flew up to the birdbath. But sure enough, the kids barely hesitated before hop-fluttering right up there next to her. I’m always surprised by how quickly quail chicks can take to the air; if I remember right, they actually learn to fly on their greater coverts while the remiges themselves are still growing. A good way to keep one step ahead of the coyotes!

What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than watching hummingbirds at Beatty’s Guest Ranch in Miller Canyon! Nearly as good as the birds was the weather: it was 103 when we left Tucson at 1:00 pm, and 78 when we arrived in Miller Canyon a bit less than two hours later.

True to form, Alison found our major target almost immediately, a male White-eared Hummingbird perched above the feeders. This individual seems to be particularly feisty, careering through with loud dry chips whenever another hummingbird dared so much as glance at the feeder the white-ear happened to think of as his at the moment.

Every bit as ferocious was the male Blue-throated Hummingbird.

The bird’s fingernails-on-a-chalkboard squeak was audible as we walked up the slope, but typically enough, he actually showed himself only in aggressive encounters with the other birds, flashing past in a mad dash of huge tail spots and whirring wings. Only once or twice did he actually visit the feeders he was so heroically guarding, spending the rest of the time perched invisible in the shade.

The other birds were more obliging. Magnificent Hummingbirds are notoriously common in the oaks of Miller Canyon, and we got great views of any number of flashy males; females were scarce at the feeders, probably off sitting on nests.

Not all of the hummingbirds were at the feeders. Tubular red flowers proved just as attractive to many individuals.

Delightful as it is to see trochilids acting “wild” like this, it’s still the feeders that give the most instructive views of most species. Broad-tailed Hummingbirds, for example, showed off their long tails and their rapier-sharp wingtips.

And Black-chinned Hummingbirds gave great views of their blobby primaries (which many of the males were putting to good use in noisy shuttle displays).

Even given views like this, not all hummingbird identification is straightforward. This individual (perched on the fence, beneath an Anna’s Hummingbird and a Broad-billed Hummingbird)has been giving me fits the last three or four times I’ve visited Miller Canyon.

The extremely worn state of most of the wing feathers–perhaps already showing a new secondary–confirms the identification as a Calypte, and the relatively large size and some new red feathers coming in on the throat make it surely an Anna’s Hummingbird. But the whole bird seems I stumpy, short-billed and short-tailed, virtually neckless and huge-headed–in structure more like a Costa’s. And indeed I’ve been present when a couple of hummingbird connoisseurs of good standing have called the bird a Costa’s. Unfortunately, on none of my visits have I heard it make any sound at all.

I think the male Anna’s Hummingbird at the feeder was slightly puzzled, too. Made me feel a bit better!