Humming birds

These guys are a real challenge to photograph. I usually get one out 15-20 pics taken.
For scale, that wire is just over 1/8" thick.
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WOW. How fantastic, Brent! Wonderful photography. Thank you so much for sharing this with us! It reminds me of my Grandfather who passed. I bet he'd love these shots, he used to watch the birds, especially hummingbirds, every morning from the large window in front of his kitchen table. Hated the damn squirells.

Thanks. My wife has feeders hung all over in our back yard so we are swarmed with them. Each feeder has a male that claims it for his own. When another male comes close it's war. The are very aggressive little buggers and pretty fun to watch.

That is soo cool. When I lived in the country, we used to have lots Humming Birds. Last year they started to hang around the house in the city. I will try to get pictures of ours and pass them on.

Hal

Very cool Brent...thanks for sharing. I don't see many of them out my way...

Oh, how beautiful!

My mom always kept several hummingbird feeders full around the front yard on the farm in Minnesota. It was fascinating to watch them feed and interact.

Thanks!

Becky

Thanks for the pictures, Brent. I recently watched a PBS show about hummingbirds. It was fascinating. I was especially enthralled with the way they fly. If I remember correctly, it is more like the flight of an insect rather than other birds. They had special cameras which take pictures every nano second (my term) which allowed the viewers to see the birds' wings at each stage of being used.

Does anyone know if hummingbirds are found in Florida? I've seen those window mounted feeders and wonder if I got one, would they come? ("Feeders of Dreams" starring Humingbird Costner, wink, wink).

Hubby was complaining to a friend about how big the bumblebee's were on their property. They were humming birds. Poor guy was ducking was dive bombing "bumblebee's".

We have discovered that if you put a perch for them on the feeders they use them more and stay longer. Wire twist ties work real good and can be adapted to any type of feeder.

I've never seen a hummingbird but they fascinate me. Something I must see one day.

We have Red Kites that fly over our house, they are pretty amazing to see http://www.redkites.co.uk/

lesherb wrote:
Does anyone know if hummingbirds are found in Florida? I've seen those window mounted feeders and wonder if I got one, would they come? ("Feeders of Dreams" starring Humingbird Costner, wink, wink).

When we put ours up they converge on them usually in less then a 1/2 hour. But I have friends in AZ that when the desert flowers are blooming the humming birds don't use the feeders. But you won't know until you put one up. They have little fear of people and if you stand still next to a feeder they will hover right next to your head.

I consider them more insect then bird. They also use their tail feathers for lift and thrust as opposed to all other birds that the tail feathers are just turning and stabilization.

Here are some I got a couple years ago. I did not have a very good camera then.


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Chick still with it's fluff feathers.
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This one is probably thinking about going back to FL. They come back to find snow falling.
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I love the photos thank you, they're such beautiful birds. We sadly don't get them in the UK. I was going to give a link to a live webcam of a hummingbird nest I've been watching but when I clicked on it, the nest was empty - a crow had taken the eggs

Amy the only time I've seen Red Kites was in your neck of the woods, driving down the M40 through the Chilterns.

Liz

Excellent pitcures, Brent. A real treat. I did not realise you get humming birds so far in the north. We learn every day. Thank you.
Senna

brent,

what kind of lenses/rig are you using?

great pics.

i got a nikon d90 w/ a nikkor A/S telephoto that i'm playing with. i have more pictures of robbins....lol.

nice work.

I use a Canon Power Shot SX100. If you wait until after the sun goes down you won't get just a silhouette and a darker background. The flash will bring out the florescent colors that the sun doesn't always get. The only way I can get my cam to auto focus is to use the feeder and keep my finger half way depressed on the shutter. The birds are too small for the cam to focus on alone.

I also use the macro setting but on max zoom. It seems to focus better and faster.

I admire the photography but I detest hummingbirds. They really freak me out because of the way they move and that they are just suddenly there.

I understand thinking they are gigantic bugs!

The irony here is I have a goldfish pond w/ a small water fall feature. The hummers LOVE that thing and the flowers only make it more attractive. I have them all the time which makes my visitors happy if not me.

Great pictures!! I finally got hummingbirds in my yard--and not from a feeder which I just haven't had luck with--but from a certain bush. They love it.

I was able to get a couple more tonight.

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Male
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Female
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Those are amazing!

well done! i put my feeder out today. hopefully my birds will come back from last year.

nice work.

Plant some bee balm and some sort of water feature that occasionally splashes water. They drink the droplets instead of from large sources. I learned all this after the fact when I suddenly had droves of the little buggers.

The butterflies love the bee balm, too.

Probably not. Usually the birds that show up are different birds. Wild birds typically do not live long, meeting with predators, storms and natural causes. Sometimes they have just moved on. They leave lots of offspring behind so we can still enjoy.

Hal

Fantastic pictures, especially the middle one.

I sadly can't put food out for the birds any more - down to my two lovely but bird-mad cats

Liz

Very cool! We have a regular group of humming birds that hang at our house in the summer. I'm getting anxious to start filling the feeder! Last year we had a couple males claiming the feeder so we had to add feeders out in the front to separate them. I'll have to try to photograph them this year. They usually do land on the back feeder and when we're sitting out back they'll actually fly around and between us sometimes.

Debbie