You have come to a mountain resort to celebrate a family wedding. Since it’s an Indian wedding, there’s a lot to do. There is also a grand-daughter to be taken care of while your daughter also goes and helps out. The entire family has arrived and are looking forward to spending time together.

So what do you do?

Early in the morning, when the rest of the family is sleeping, you quietly sneak of the house that has been rented, and go climbing up and down the pine-covered slopes, listening to the calls of what must be common birds in the area, but which are new to YOU.

Suddenly, what appears to be a particularly large beetle zzzzips past you…and you realize that you have just seen one of the beautiful

HUMMINGBIRDS

that California is famous for. They are around you, and you wish you had more than the trusty MLC2 with you…but you don’t want to let the opportunity go.

It’s impossible to get good shots of these restless birds, and all you can get is:

and

then, at a distance, you watch a tiny creature settle on a twig, and try to extend MLC2 to its fullest ability to get this:

The images of the hummingbirds will remain vivid in my mind, however, for a long time…