On Saturday, our research site in Deep Canyon was visited by a flotilla of golf carts. The golf carts, about 20 in all, carried almost 40 visitors from the neighboring Reserve. The Reserve is a gated community, complete with golf course, and is home to some of my favorite people in the Coachella Valley.

What I love most about The Reserve, which we drive through every time we enter or exit our field station, is that it is landscaped with native vegetation. I think of it as “Sonoran on Steroids”, because it is filled with desert plants, but they are closely packed and watered. It is hummingbird heaven - loaded with flowering chuparosa and brittlebush, hummingbird feeders and misters at many homes. There is a Costa’s Hummingbird at about every fourth tree as you drive from our field station to the gated entrance.

Dr. Muth, describing the geology of a nearby mountain ridge

Al Muth, the field station director, asked the students in my lab to give a brief talk about their research to our visitors. This stretched into thirty minutes of lively questions and discussion about hummingbirds, black-throated sparrows, and desert ecology. I was impressed with the questions; they were clearly based on thoughtful observation of and appreciation for the natural world.

Uyen Tran, preparing to play Costa's Hummingbird song

Cory Castro, showing her new research species, the Black-Throated Sparrow

I was also impressed with Cory and Uyen (with Will, Ben and Sergio providing backup). We had been running around the desert catching birds for hours and were dirty and tired when our visitors showed up at 4:00 pm. But they still managed to be articulate and enthusiastic. I just wish the rest of the lab could have been there to “wow” our neighbors. Maybe next year, during the third annual golf cart flotilla.

I was walking above the wash this week with Bethany and Wade, and a pair of Costa’s fluttered and spun by us at about shoulder height. It was hard to see clearly, but the male appeared to be hanging on to the back of the female with his beak. We could hear their wings striking as they flew erratically about 15 meters before reaching a creosote. At that point we lost sight of them.

I couldn’t find anything like this in the literature, but Peter Siminski at Living Desert mentioned that he sees them tumble to the ground when they copulate.

Below is a picture of a female chasing a male Costa’s from a chuparosa at Desert Willow Golf Course. We checked out the grounds on Monday, hoping to find a population of Anna’s in the area (we found lots of Anna’s on golf courses in Anza Borrego, but have had more trouble finding a good sized population around Palm Desert).

This male Costa’s hummingbird flies in to feed, then briefly buzzes the camera before returning to the feeder

Probably the same male again, taking a long drink while hovering.  Te sound has been removed from this clip due to the presence of distracting anthropogenic noise.

I am always excited, but also a little nervous, when we start finding nests with eggs. It means the field season is in full swing and there’s no more time for slip-ups. This year, the first nest with eggs was in the backyard of the Nickersons, neighbors of our field station at Deep Canyon. They kindly allowed me to post pictures of the nest. Photos by Bryan Nickerson.

A science writer colleague was amused by a comment I made about the recent rains being enough to ensure that my graduate students can collect enough data to complete their theses. When you work with nectar feeders, you think about things like this… Anyway, she wrote a blogpost about our work. You can tell she’s a professional science writer - it’s beautifully written.

Storm clouds in Deep Canyon. Note the Costa's male hummingbird at the top left of the tree, undaunted by the rain.