She was actually here all day last Saturday, and then gone by the next morning.
John first noticed her around 8 a.m. at the orange Mexican Bird of Paradise shrub just outside our back fence.
We immediately recognized by her brown belly markings that she was different from our usual hummingbirds, so I set about taking photos to try to ID her.
It was not a quick project, but a good excuse to just sit in the backyard with binoculars and camera at hand.
For most of the day, she visited for a few minutes every half hour or so, quietly making her way around the plant.
She never came into the yard to visit our nectar feeders, even though they were nearby and in plain view.
She appeared to rest in a tree farther out across the wash (desert ravine) when she wasn't feeding.
She was shy of us coming close, so I had to take photos from a distance, aiming between the bars of the fence.
Late in the day, as the sun began to disappear over the mountains, she visited more often, finally attracting the notice of one of our backyard bully Costa's males.
He challenged her, and they had a few aerial skirmishes, but she held her ground and continued to visit till the sun had set.
We were not entirely surprised that she was gone Sunday morning.
We were just glad that she had shared her tiny beauty with us for a day, and reminded us of the value of quietly sitting and looking and sometimes, if we're lucky, seeing something very fleeting and very special.
She was a female Calliope Hummingbird, uncommon in our area, migrating south to warmer climates for the winter.
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