{"id":163731,"date":"2024-08-31T06:16:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-31T12:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=163731"},"modified":"2024-08-31T08:10:25","modified_gmt":"2024-08-31T14:10:25","slug":"female-black-chinned-hummingbird-at-my-trumpet-vine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2024\/08\/31\/female-black-chinned-hummingbird-at-my-trumpet-vine\/","title":{"rendered":"Female Black-chinned Hummingbird At My Trumpet Vine"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s about time for our hummingbirds to head south for the winter so two days ago I decided to stay home and spend the entire morning attempting to photograph hummers at my trumpet vine before they’re gone. I didn’t want to wait too long to tell them goodbye like I did last year. And I’ll admit, it’s a long distance to my regular birding locations and I didn’t feel like driving all morning.<\/p>\n

It was slow going. In the 3 1\/2 hours I spent sitting on my deck in front of my tripod, one or two hummers only showed up four times and they rarely fed on the trumpet vine flowers. They spent most of their time fighting or laying in ambush for each other on their favorite perches.<\/p>\n

So I didn’t get many photos I like but I did get a few. I believe that the hummer in the photos below is the same grumpy and aggressive female Black-chinned Hummingbird in all five photos. But I’m not certain.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

These first three photos are sequential in a flight series as she was hovering near some of the flowers during a faceoff with a rival hummingbird above her. Wings forward.<\/p>\n

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1\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Wings back.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

I chose a different composition for this third photo in the series. She still has her eye on the other hummingbird above her but immediately after this shot was taken her rival dived down below her and she followed. So I lost her in the frame.<\/p>\n

Immediately after that they both disappeared.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/5000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Ten minutes later I was still waiting (im)patiently for one of them to show up again when I realized that Miss Grumpy was perched on a high twig of the trumpet vine and guarding ‘her’ flowers. This photo was taken as she was reacting to the approach of her rival.<\/p>\n

It looks to me like she has a full crop. If so (it may not be – after all, they feed mostly on nectar), I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that in a hummingbird.<\/p>\n

Edit: I became curious, so I looked it up and found this. ” Hummingbirds generally only fill their crop 1\/10 to 1\/3 full when they drink. They fill their crops before sunset to provide them with extra energy at night in torpor. Hummingbirds can’t eat again until their crop is half empty.”<\/em><\/p>\n

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1\/2000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

This was her other favorite perch for standing guard over the trumpet vine. She isn’t taking off – she’s holding her wings out in a threat posture as her rival approaches once again.<\/p>\n

It was a long morning with very few opportunities for photos but I’m glad I made the effort. In the two days since these photos were taken I haven’t seen a single hummingbird at the trumpet vine, or at my hummingbird feeder in my garden or anywhere else in my yard. Even though I’ve been watching for them.<\/p>\n

They may already be gone for the winter. I wouldn’t be surprised because suddenly it’s been getting quite cold at night (50\u00b0 night before last). Cold enough that for the last three mornings I’ve been sorely tempted to fire up my furnace. In August!<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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PS – I just now (8:05 AM) looked out at my trumpet vine and saw a hummer feeding at one of the flowers in the shade. I’m delighted about being wrong about them being “already gone”.<\/em><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have I already seen my last hummers of the season? (5 photos)<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,3531],"tags":[2186,2174,7601,7600,5911,311],"class_list":["post-163731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-black-chinned-hummingbirds","tag-archilochus-alexandri","tag-black-chinned-hummingbird","tag-can-a-hummingbird-have-a-full-crop","tag-last-hummingbirds-of-the-season","tag-trumpet-vine","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/black-chinned-hummingbird-7172-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-GAP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163731"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163777,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163731\/revisions\/163777"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}