Hi tweets:

Just got back from a business trek to Phoenix. Hot and dry while it
was raining here. Went out to the Boyce Arboretum and saw a few new
(to us) avian examples (Bell's vireo, lazuli bunting) and lots of
hummer activity. Costas and black chinned where in all stages of
raising new little buzzers. Sitting on nests, jamming their beaks
down the throats of youngsters on branches, chasing each other
everywhere.

One very small juvenile was sitting on a branch right beside the
trail. Clarice spotted it, right at head height. We admired it a
while, as it checked us out, then it tentatively lifted off. Clarice
had picked up a new, deep red, baseball cap at a trade show-- which I
was wearing to show it off. The little hummer did not get into a
horizontal fast zoom position, instead hovered vertically and slowly,
gingerly, approached. I held real still as it drifted around to my
left side, out of sight since I didn't want to turn my head. Then, as
I was being tasted (I guess) the wing buzz got so close it was like
putting a stethoscope in your left ear and pressing it up to one of
those majic finger machines you used to see in motels. Cheap
thrill.

Little hummer then drifted up to a branch, and watched me a while as
I hung around, and Clarice went down path. I looked up at it when it
again slowly lifted off and floated down, this time to the cap brim.
Now I'm standing there with a hummer tummy right in front of my eyes
and my mustache being fanned. Its been several years since I could
focus that close without reading glasses, but I'm pretty sure my brim
was tasted two or three times. Again, off it drifted to a branch--
took one last look and zoomed away. I wonder if it learned anything?
Jerry Broadus
P.O. Box 249
Puyallup, WA. 98371