By Dan Groebner

The monsoon storms may not have arrived yet, but the hummingbirds have! According to some Native American traditional beliefs, hummingbirds and yellow-billed cuckoos are signs that the rains will soon follow. Hummingbirds need the nectar from moisture-thirsty colorful flowers, as well as the insect hatches arising from rains that the cuckoos also depend on to feed their young.

With its incredibly rich abundance and variety of hummingbirds, the Sipe White Mountain Wildlife Area, managed by Arizona Game and Fish, will host the 23rd annual High Country Hummingbird Festival on July 25, 2026, from 8:00 a.m. to noon. This morning-only event has traditionally ended with a good thunderstorm, so the parking lot pastures need to be cleared out before they get too wet.

This year’s event will highlight hummingbird photography, with tips for professional results, equipment demonstration set-ups, and the opportunity for amateur photographers with only a phone camera to take part in a citizen science project. More details on this project are below. A new feature this year will allow you and your family to become “Human-Hummingbird Hybrids” for a photo opportunity worthy of printing and sticking to your refrigerator with the complimentary hummingbird magnets available at the festival. You’ll have to attend the festival to get the full details.

The live wildlife booth from the Game and Fish’s Wildlife Center will again allow kids and families to get up close to some native Arizona wildlife in a safe, fun, and educational environment. This year will also see the return of the popular “Naturalist’s Station” where folks can interact one-on-one with a biologist and learn some of the finer points of hummingbird identification with poster-sized guides and smaller complimentary ID cards of six of the most common hummingbirds in the White Mountains.

The “Kids Zone” is the spot for hands-on activities, making small songbird and hummingbird feeders (while supplies last), creating hummingbird works of art, trying your hand at origami birds, 2D and 3D puzzles and word games. Toy stuffed songbirds help kids identify the most common ones in the area. The festival will again feature the “Hummer Feeder Face shields,” allowing photos of hummingbirds just inches from someone’s face behind the clear plastic shield.

The citizen science project mentioned above, officially named the “Sipe Wildlife Area AI Hummingbird Census”, will provide an opportunity for anybody attending the festival with a camera, on your phone or a dedicated camera, to assist with a census of the number of hummingbirds attending the Hummingbird Festival.

The AI actually stands for Annual Instantaneous because it will happen every year at the festival by having participants take photos at the various feeders all at the same instant, synchronized with a countdown played over the PA system. Citizen scientists/photographers will then take their photos home and count the number of hummingbirds in their photos and include that number in the photo’s filename that they email to Game and Fish for verification and analysis.

To provide another estimate of the number of hummers at the festival, the amount of nectar consumed during the day will be weighed and divided by the amount consumed by an average-sized hummingbird to get an independent number estimate for comparison. A quarter ounce (9 g) of nectar per day per bird is in the middle of a bunch of varying estimates for their needs. That means if you are going through a gallon a day at your feeders, you might be providing nourishment for around 500 hummingbirds!!!

Presentations on the biology and natural history of hummingbirds, as well as tips on feeding them, will be part of the schedule for the morning. You can’t avoid being impressed with these little flying gems of the White Mountains just watching them at all the feeders, but when you hear about their abilities to maneuver backwards 50 mph or fly non-stop across the Gulf of Mexico and other amazing facts, you’ll want to learn even more about them.

Different conservation organizations and agencies will also be on hand to provide information and answer questions. The Forest Service will have the latest fire conditions, and Arizona Game and Fish can provide answers on various local projects and hunting or angling regulations. The Department’s Wildlife Viewing Program will be on hand to describe this year’s programs, most of which are held in the Phoenix metro area. Sherrie Adams, from Christopher’s Gardens in Pinetop/Lakeside, will display examples of native nectar-producing plants that grow well in the White Mountains and provide growing tips for native flowers.

Some of these same plants, as well as others, also support moths and butterflies, such as the imperiled monarch butterfly, which you can learn about at the booth featuring the Southwest Monarch Project. Gail Morris, Project Coordinator, and Ann Burkhart from the project will explain the importance of milkweed and other plants to help support declining populations.

The White Mountain Audubon Society will have members available to answer questions about their birding activities, meetings, and membership advantages. Many of them have fed hummingbirds for years in the White Mountains and have great tips for local feeding, especially in bear country.

For the purpose of emphasizing the need to regularly clean hummingbird feeders, the “World’s Largest Self-cleaning Hummingbird Feeder” will be on display again this year. This feeder cleans itself every night with warm tap water and then circulates nectar through a series of tubes with feeder ports during the day. Since the nectar reservoir is fairly large and constantly disinfected with a UV light, overall maintenance is reduced while maintaining sanitary conditions. This demonstration project is under constant development and is being evaluated regularly.

As part of your visit to Sipe Wildlife Area, it’s worth your time to go through the professionally curated Visitor Center to learn about the history of the building, the local area, as well as interactive displays of the resident wildlife. The building itself has undergone many transformations over the years and now hosts thousands of people every summer. The Visitor Center grounds are maintained by volunteer hosts, under the direction of wildlife area manager Ron Logan.

Sipe Wildlife Area also boasts many well-maintained trails, with interpretive signs, benches, and a remote toilet. Trails to the west of the Visitor Center gain elevation right away and provide wide panoramic views of Rudd Creek, the wildlife area, and associated meadows. Escudilla Mountain can frame your photos from this trail.

If you’re looking for flatter trails, they can be found south of the Visitor Center by accessing the service road along Rudd Creek past the Manager’s Residence. You can learn about some of the earliest inhabitants of the area at a historical, archeological site after you hike up a small incline away from Rudd Creek. If we’re lucky with lots of moisture this monsoon season, you could encounter waterfowl and wading birds in McKay, Glen Livet, or Trinity Reservoirs, which have all dried up in our drought.

The Sipe White Mountain Wildlife Area is located just a few miles south of Springerville/Eagar on US Highway 191 on your way to Alpine. Turn right at the top of the first hill on your way out of Springerville at the signs for the Sipe Wildlife Area and festival. From Highway 191 it’s about 5 miles on the well-maintained gravel road to the parking area.

Admission and parking are free for the event, but donations of 4-pound bags of pure cane white sugar for the hummingbird feeders are gladly accepted. Rusty’s Meat Truck will make biscuits and gravy for breakfast and fresh grilled cheeseburgers for lunch. The Round Valley Chamber of Commerce will sell bottled water, soft drinks, chips, cookies, and muffins. Mobile phone and internet connectivity are not available in the wildlife area, so all food sales are cash only.

And since you’ve made it this far, you deserve to learn about the latest discovery in hummingbird ecological research. Almost every other small bird has a distinctive song, thus the group name “songbirds.” However, hummingbirds are one of the few birds that doesn’t have a distinctive song. Scientists have discovered that a hummingbird brain does not have the storage capacity like other songbirds. So, obviously, hummingbirds can’t remember all the words and just have to hum along…… That’s called a Grandpa joke.