Birds and Blooms at the Arboretum

The University of California at Santa Cruz maintains an arboretum that is open to the public.  For only $5 you can stroll through the gardens and enjoy their expansive collection of plants.  And of course when the plants are blooming, they attract a variety of birds.  Todays’ visit was focused on seeing the beautiful Allen and Anna’s hummingbirds.

Walkways lead you through many different garden areas.

Unfortunately, I was still not feeling well, so I stayed home with Poppy and Russ went with Kate and Terry.  All photos shown here were taken by Russ, with his new camera!!
The colors on the different blossoms were stunning. 










I have no idea what any of these are, I just enjoy looking at them.  I wish I had been able to see them in person.

Russ’s new camera is a Nikon P510, with a 42X optical zoom.  It has some other neat features too and he is really enjoying it.  We started out looking for a new camera for me, but Russ found this one and was so taken with it, that we ended up buying it.  I’m glad he has something he enjoys working with.

They saw quite a few hummers.  Russ took some high speed video (which slows down the motion).  Here’s a short 30 second clip.  Fist is a little guy sitting still…something you don’t often see hummers do…then just a little bit of a hummingbird doing what hummingbirds do best!


This is an Allen’s hummingbird (I think).









And this is…..



   THE END!