Anna's Hummingbird

After a cloudy and mostly rainy morning in Sierra Vista, spent in our room, we headed north at midday, hoping for relief.  But despite promising signs on the weather channel's radar, the clouds held on, and the precipitation turned from intermittent rain to continuing light snow! No accumulation, but impressive nonetheless. Eventually, about 40 miles from Tucson, blue sky and sun took over.

After checking into our hotel we headed for Sweetwater Wetlands (a nature  reserve and water treatment area in NW Tucson). Fading light from the setting sun behind me was enough to set this Anna's helmet on fire :)  I posted another just over five years ago in Arizona--that was probably taken in full sunlight; I prefer today's gentle light. It's again a male; only they have the bright gorget or helmet.  Birds were a bit scarce today; the best were a green heron, a roadrunner, verdin, and a cooper's hawk, as well as two northern harriers on the drive north.  The roadrunner I blipped six days ago was also taken at Sweetwater Wetlands

Tomorrow we rise at the crack of dawn to catch our flight home.