Counting the Birds

Hummingbirds, one of the world's tiniest birds, are found only in the western hemisphere...  luckily  the Concho Valley is home to hundreds of those birds. Every year bird lovers come together to track the population and migration of local hummingbirds and other birds by tagging them.


We hear them. We see them. But how often do we get to observe these animals in arms length? Over a dozen ornithologists have migrated to the Hummer House near Christoval for their annual bird tagging which is held during the summer solstice.
 “It’s a key time in the bird’s lives; they understand the length of daylight so this is why that we do it this particular time and within 2 ½ weeks from now some of these hummingbirds will begin migrating.” Hummer House owner, Dan Brown says.

For 12 years Dan Brown has welcomed these researchers to his ranch to catch these birds into nets to conduct studies on the different species of birds.

Bird researcher, Ross Dawkins says, “You want to know where they go? And the only way that you have a tracking where the birds go is put a band some place else and we want to know how old they are.”

An average hummingbird weighs 2 pennies and ornithologists say that holding studies such as this allows them to discover these facts.

“We measure the amount of fat and also one of the things we look for is any kind of disease and any kind of parasites,” Dawkins says.

A couple hundred hummingbirds are expected to be tagged and later migrate thousands of miles away but their hearts will stay with these bird lovers.