Today is time to drive to the Hummingbird festival in Sipe Springs, the main reason for us for visiting the White Mountains this time. But first we decide to stop briefly at the Farmers Market, it is open only today during our stay so why not, it is also quite close to our AirBnB. The parking is quite empty so we assume that there are not a lot of people at the Farmers Market however we are quite wrong, it seems there is another parking that is full nearby.
We shop around a bit and buy some fruits but then it is time to drive to Sipe Springs, it is getting late and the festival is ending around 12 so we do not have enough time, it is still one hour of driving time to get there.
We have been to Sipe Springs before and the parking was quite limited so we are not sure how they can handle all the influx of cars that we are expecting. However they are prepared, a large grassy area is being used as additional parking with police directing traffic to empty places quite efficiently.
While we expected some additional visitors than the usual single digit ones we did not expect so many people to actually make the drive here for the festival. There are families with children, older people and everything in between all looking for hummingbirds and hummingbirds only.
Most hummingbirds here are broadly two species, Broad-tailed and Rufous. But then there are young ones, female ones and male ones so there are lots of nuances to observe as we make our way from feeder to feeder.
As this is a festival there are of course a few vendors, not many though, and some presentations. But it is difficult to find out what is presented and it is already late so we decide to only visit the grounds and not attend any seminars.
We also enter into the Sipe Springs Visitor Center where there are no additional exhibits but we still enjoy the permanent ones including the Montezuma Quail that we would really like to see alive.
We find a few more out of the way feeders and here the hummingbirds are more relaxed but everywhere there are people with hand feeders trying to convince the hummingbirds to land on them and failing miserably.
Funnily at the entrance we find the only information about the festival, there is no brochure showing events or hours or exhibitors otherwise.
And then it is time to find something to eat, there is only one food vendor so actually it is an easy choice. Finding a place to sit is difficult but we find something in the end and after eating our hamburger and hotdog and full it is now time to explore the trails.
