Mystery Bird Tour (1 Viewer)

This past summer I took a few photos of a bird I was not sure of but sensed some serious damage to the wings.. I watched and was so careful to not put additonal stress on this bird..
In time I was to see this mystery bird and it was always in the company of a rufous female hummingbird(there goes one myth)
This bird was larger then any of our regular four species of hummers and the wings were almost tattered beyond belief.. looked like it was in a huge forest fire!
There were no fires in the immediate area but there had been a huge one in Colorado and Arizona.. in that corner.
I did not do much with this photo but a couple of days later I urged my husband to come outside and see this pair of hummingbirds at the feeder.. one very healthy and quite gregarious Rufous female and one very large very grey and very damaged "other" hummer.
I asked him IF we might tell someone about this(this was my very first MISTAKE)
We thought about it.. and we did decide to get in touch with our local Twitcher King(my newly learned phrase). He saw it and asked permission to send it away to Ken Kauffman we agreed and (second Mistake) we also agreed to having this published with our phone number(BIG MISTAKE)
We got a call early and I mean really damn early.. "heard ya had a bird there kin we come by?"Well being really enthusiastic and completely a dolt of the highest order I said YES sure come on by...(by now you can count the mistakes ok)
Well soon the cars were lining the laneway and we have binos and huge Lens .. I mean HUGE! we had people tramping on each other and really totally blown away by our yard.. they talked and they moved about and I actually freaking served refreshments(remember my comment on being a dolt).
You might imagine that all of our hummingbirds.. perhaps a dozen that were brave enough to fly by this horde of people with stuff attached to their faces! The birds were stressed and no one but no one saw anything that even came close to our mystery bird...
The phone rang continuously.. we got in touch with Cornell University in the states and I wrote to my personal favourite David Sibley..
Now these folks are famous and they KNOW.. well Cornell said it was a Ruby Throat and clearly it was too big and we do not have them here... and they do not look remotely close to what I had for evidence.Kauffman said it was NOT a Magnificent but did not know what it was.. David dear sweet wonderful David wrote a very personal and lovey reply stating it was a Annas and that we had a great yard and so on... now the bird we had was measured and photographed and it was either the biggest damn Annas hummingbird on record or it was the Magnificent.Now this would have been world records for us and the twitchers were on stand by with the private jets ready to go..
We limited the people here to first thing in the morning(5-6)am and one at a time... some saw what we had and others were not that lucky.
One day I sat down and re-thought the whole process and decided that we would not allow another person here to LOOK and tramp all over anything.. for the most part we did meet some fabulous people but the very best line was"oh gawd it is only an Annas, I have one of those.. well fine then you just saved me the trouble from travelling miles to get there not to mention the expense!!!
You will never know how profoundly pleased I was to have saved that person from that kind of trouble.
Our bird left in better shape then it arrived.. and my flower beds recovered.. we made a few really nice friends out of the deal but....
Will I ever tell anyone other then my husband about a mystery bird.. NOT on your life!
Twitchers are not coming on my property..
End of story? We do not know exactly what anyone else thinks about our mystery hummingbird but we do have our serious thoughts on what it really was and you know what? We are keeping it to ourselves.

Great story Gaye. I see that you already knew of twitchers, if not the name we call those dedicated souls. I can sympathise with you over the number that turn up at a sighting. I've seen hundreds all clamouring to see a tiny little bird. I enjoy my birdwatching, but I get no pleasure out of that sort of viewing.

Go on, you can tell us what it was, we won't tell anyone else

Gaye,
Interesting to see an aspect of our pastime from someone else's perspective. The only 'rarity' I've ever had in my garden that I shared with anyone else was Waxwing (Bohemian Waxwing, if you prefer), which I had during an invasion year. I had no problems of the kind you mention, probably because a) they were in a crab-apple tree in my front garden, and b) I made everyone stand on the opposite side of the road (suburban, residential) to see them. My then employers were totally confused when I phoned up and said I wouldn't be at work until the birds had flown - this took three days, after which my crab-apple tree was bare.

Tony

Tony I have one of the funniest stories done by a radio host and I would be quite willing to copy it on a cd for you .. I do believe you will find it most hilarious.. let me know..
We have Bohemians here but not this time around.. also cedars.. they are quite simply exquisite,
I love your idea of making these folks stand on the other side of the road.. good on you mate!

Thanks very much, that would be most kind of you. We've had cedar waxwing here a couple of times - now that I've moved from London to Norfolk, I have about 200 fewer miles to travel if another turns up (Oh what a give away !). I've replied to your e-mail.

Tony

A wonderful tale, Gaye. I must agree with Ian, though, that that kind of "obsession" is beyond me! I've said it before and I'll say it again: I get just as much pleasure watching my 'umble sparrows as I do anything else (although getting real close to the Grey Phalarope last month was a definite thrill!).

Next time you see something out of the ordinary, just tell us nice people on BF! We won't come and trample your flower beds! Well not if you post a nice pic of it!

Cheers

Al

Thank you to both of you.. you know I have not enjoyed a bird forum as much as I am this one in a long long time...

Al... I agree when you see something that is rare to you or a FIRST it is so exciting.. and I allow full run for that kind of excitement.It is far more fun for me to not get caught up in the list bit that is sometimes more important then the actual sighting.. what will these folks leave as a legacy??
Tony ....super.. this is really a great part of the forum and I will be in touch post haste!
In America most bird forums are littered with gals and that can and does get somewhat .. well it is different. This is more gents and I find it nicer and well nicer.
I mean no offence to any particular gender here so do not get anything bunched up ok.. it is just a difference that has been noted.

Well one and all, I am in danger of doing some twitching today, but only locally. I have never seen a Waxwing and 8 have been sighted right in Billingham over the last two days, so I'm off out to have a twitch as soon as there is enough light !

Oh Ian would you mind awfully if I posted some for you?? I do not mean in any way to take away from your twitiching.. but I had occasion to see a number of these beautiful birds this summer with my 12 year old grandson Mackenzie.. and these are his favourite birds... Let me know if you might like a wee peek.. after you find your own that is... Happy Twitching!

By all means Gaye, they are a beautiful bird and one of our favourites. Even if I get to see them today, I doubt that I will get a photo. It will be nice just to see them in the flesh or should that be feather ???

Here you are Ian.. I have some of their young and some adults..

Thanks Gaye, found them :t:

Hey my pleasure Ian.. it is 11:31 pm here and I am enjoying this.. glad you got em!

Gaye you can post shots as part of the threads too you know or even in the Quickpix forum which more people seem to view. I see that you have been posting and removing photos from the Gallery which seems a shame as you have some excellent shots. You can leave them in the Gallery as long as you want up to a 2 mp limit and may be post them in threads or in the Quickpix gallery too, so more people can get to see them. I know that one or two members have had trouble accessig the Gallery proper, but everyone seems able to get into the forum photos.

Just a suggestion.

I actually thought I was being a bit obnoxious posting so many photos.. so I thought it unfair to hog the space with mine.. so I figured they had been looked at and that was great and I would take 'em off.I am still learning to navigate here and I have seen there are many member that simply do not ever post.. and that many folks look but never comment.. I figure that is ok by me but I also figure I will rotate my shots according to interest shown..I have a huge number of beautiful landscapes.. they are really gorgeous not because I took them but because of where they were taken.I tend to PUSH the envelope on alot of my location shots and our field trips are really inot remote areas... it is huge fun for us.

I agree with your sentiments entirely.

Many members choose to view rather than participate in the threads. Obviously particicaption is far better than just viewing as it is what keeps the site going. I have found that some members prefer to browse the site for a while, maybe testing the water, before fully participating. It is up to everyone to decide what is best for themselves.

I'd be inclined to post your photos in the Gallery up to the 2 mb limit and then start rotating them. Any additional shots or to illustrate a thread could go in the forum or the Quickpix forum where more mebers visit, though I see the problems being experienced seem to be sorted now.

Excellent idea Ian thank you so much for the tips.. I will see what is good enough and then figure out where to put what...I understand about people needing to be in a zone that feels ok for them... no problem. I am really easy going .But I notice stuff..

Hello Gaye,
On behalf of twitchers everywhere I apologise:if a similar thing happened here in Ireland we'd be far more co=operative.A Great Spotted Woodpecker was seen in Northern Ireland last winter:I didn't get to go,but those that did looked for the bird from the family's house,therefore not disturbing the bird at all.
(I would have gone up on the Saturday,but we decided not to on the basis of the weather forecast.A friend of mine still went up all the way from Kerry and missed it,so we were lucky not to have travelled.)
It helps,of course,that there are so few of us dedicated twitchers over here:a bird would have to be damn good to draw any sort of a crowd.
What was the hummingbird?My hummer ID skills are non-existent,since I've never been to North America.
Harry

Well now Harry this bird we had was measured by my very adept husband who is quite exacting... it was 5 1/2 inches in length and the wing span was greater then what we had been told to expect from the bird that everyone seemed to think we had.
It had been in a fire and it was off course no matter what it was.
We know our yard birds better then any and spend many hours out there from March to October..
We have hummers here for between 6-6.5 months and believe me when I say that there is not too many places that can say that even in some states!We are a major breeding spot for the Rufous, Caliope and Blackchin... we also get a Costas as a straggler.. on occasion we also have had the Annas here(they are not rare here)
There had been a huge fire in the quadrant of Arizona/Colorado//Utah borders.. and we wondered about a huge updraft and this poor hummingbird being sent sky high as it were...
WE have no conclusive proof but if as David Sibley GUESSED based on our info and photos; it was a world record sized hummingbird for it's type.. and if as Cornell plainly did not know but took a quick stab we had a world record anyway(they were 100% wrong) and Ken Kauffamn being the world's authority on the Magnificent hummingbird said nay to that; but could not say What it was.. we simply at this point said good enough and will keep our thoughts on what we determined it to be to ourselves.. it was worse then a 3 ring circus.
But for us the thrill of it all was we had a badly damaged hummingbird here that could barely fly from perch to feeder when it arrived.
For some reason it ended up always with a juvenile Rufous female which in and of itself was a rather stunning occurrence(they are not overly social )and as the days went by the tattered and torn hummer regained her strength and when seen it was always with the other much smaller hummer. They both left here on the same date..We shall now see IF it survived the migration if it returns here in late March. For us to see her survive was the best thing ever.. she was not shy around us and that made for viewing even more pleasurable.
If we ever do cross the big pond then for sure we will become twitchers as many of your birds we do not have here..but I promise you I will be the excited one the one with huge smile on my face.. asking dumb questions and wanting to know more more more..
Happy Sunday and Merry Christmas to you.