Rufous Hummingbird

(Salasphorus rufus)

This little bird is just a temporary visitor to my yard, for he is migrating between Mexico and the northwest United States. My normal yard hummer, the Costa's acts a lot different then this colorful one. For one thing, the Rufous' humming noise is twice as loud, he is also far more aggressive to the other hummers. Also, I've been trying to photograph him for day now, so allusive and skittish.

I had to use a very high ISO here and still didn't stop those supersonic wing beats. Also it was very over cast and late in the afternoon as well. By the way, just a few hours before I took this image we got a real gully-washer, 2 inches (over 5cm) of rain in about an hour. Now thats an Arizona monsoon!

A Bigger Little Bird

And if you get a chance,
I back-blipped a North American Bobcat
that was in my yard yesterday.