While everyone else was clubbing and going to church

What an eventful twelve hours!

As many of my friends in Ottawa will attest, I have been water deprived and looking enviously at the forecast back home, asking for packages of rain to be sent my way.

I don't know what you guys did, but thanks for listening. The awe-inspiring lightning was a nice touch.





Sheet lightning storm!!

Chris took some amazing photos and posted them on her blog. Totally worth checking out.


The rain came and went quickly and after a short sleep, I got up extra early (5am) to start hummingbird research duty to a absolute chorus of birds:



After stumbling over to the coffee machine (which, I'm embarrassed to say, we were too tired to figure out), made our way to the hummingbird feeders where these nets were set up to capture them. Susan, the researcher who makes a bi-weekly appearance to do population studies and banding was raring to go. Our job for the next five hours was to "fish" for the hummers. The nets that surrounded the feeders were mostly lifted and the long fishing lines that held them up were clipped to a stand in front of the bench we sat on. When a hummingbird landed on the feeder and the timing was just right, we let go of the clip and the net fell around him/her. Then came the fun and scary bit. We had to go grab them gently, place them in a mesh bag and bring them to the researchers.

You know, just another Sunday morning at SWRS.

Here is Chris deftly catching a feisty little thing:


Want to see more action? I placed my camera on video at the base of the netted area while I got this one:



The most amazing hummingbird here is the Magnificent. You can see why they call it that:

Oh! He blinked!

That's better.


Shimmering in the sun.

He's quite big. The little ones (blackchinned) were the most intense. They were hard to get your hand around and flew all around touching down on the net very rarely. The feeling of the wind from those little wings on my palm was impressive. And when I finally got them - being very careful not to hurt their wings - their little flexible bodies were warm against my fingertips and their little hearts were beating so fast, the whole bird was vibrating. It was an experience I'll never forget.