Kenny's Birthday

The day after Easter was Uncle Kenny's 60th birthday. No one said a word about it in the days preceeding, and when we all woke up on Monday we pretended it was just a regular day. We packed up some ham sandwiches and Andy and I took Kenny and Mike on a morning of psycho-birding at Madera Canyon, about an hour outside of Tucson. Chris and Carol and AJ stayed in Tucson to "watch Aiden." In retrospect, this was all probably just a little fishy for Kenny and he probably suspected something was up from the get-go. But he played along and enjoyed the Acorn Woodpeckers, Bridled Titmice, and Painted Redstarts as we ran around with our binos.

Madera Canyon

Flock of Wild Turkeys at Madera Picnic Area

Acorn Woodpeckers

Mexican Jay

It was at the feeders at the Santa Rita Lodge in Madera Canyon that we saw an explosion of new hummingbirds. Up to this point Andy and I had only ever seen 3 species - Ruby-Throated, Rufous, and Buff-Bellied. After we sat for 15 minutes at the Santa Rita Lodge we had more than doubled our hummer life list! We got Broad-Billed (pic above), Anna's, Magnificent, and Black-Chinned! Add that to the Costa's Hummingbird we had seen in Tucson and we were up 200%.

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After birding all morning, we stopped at Nimbus Brewing Company on the way back to the Dolan's house. I didn't take any pictures inside, but its basically like a huge shipping warehouse where they've set up all the brewing tanks and in the front there's a full bar and seating so you can drink and even get some greasy munchies if you want. Very cool. Andy, Kenny, Mike and I polished off two "samplers" which included at least 12 different 6oz glasses of all their brews. They have one called "Old Monkeyshine" which has a ridiculously high alcohol content. Of course we had to get a few growlers of that to bring back.

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Kenny's birthday present from us (Monkeyshine T)

When we finally made it back to the Dolan's, everyone "surprised" Kenny with happy birthday wishes, including his old friend "Fuzzy" from NY who happened to be in Tucson visiting her son. Kenny was not happy about the fanfare but took the whole thing like a good sport (at least after several glasses of Monkeyshine). The Dolans' daughters Jessica and Amy (and Amy's husband Eric and their two daughers) also came over for dinner so it was a big party.

Mike doling out the Monkeyshine

Clockwise from top left: Kenny and Fuzzy; AJ being a/eating some ham; Aiden and Ally (sp?); the kids in Jillian's guinea pig cage

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Hanging out in the backyard after dinner

It was Jillian's birthday too so she and Kenny shared a cake