{"id":26080,"date":"2014-08-23T06:09:54","date_gmt":"2014-08-23T12:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=26080"},"modified":"2014-08-23T06:09:54","modified_gmt":"2014-08-23T12:09:54","slug":"hummingbird-potpourri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/23\/hummingbird-potpourri\/","title":{"rendered":"Hummingbird Potpourri"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently I’ve spent four mornings photographing hummingbirds and sphinx moths as they fed on Rocky Mountain Bee Plant\u00a0on Antelope Island.\u00a0 This morning I thought I’d present a rather diverse mix of Black-chinned and Rufous Hummingbird images from those sessions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-chinned<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/5.6. ISO 500. Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Their time was divided up into three primary activities – feeding, resting and chasing away a variety of potential competitors like other hummingbirds, sphinx moths, butterflies and even bees.\u00a0 In most of the shots of them feeding their bill was buried in the flower umbel but this time I caught the bird as it pulled away.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-chinned<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/2000, f\/5.6. ISO 640. Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Usually when they were resting they would choose a high perch and\u00a0their posture suggested that they were extremely alert to other nectar-eaters that might come into the flower patch and\u00a0compete with them for food.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-chinned<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3. ISO 640. Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0But occasionally one would squat down on its perch and seem to relax.\u00a0 Here we see\u00a0rhynchokinesis (flexibility of the bill tip) which is common in hummingbirds.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-chinned<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 640. Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0A moment later the bird stuck out its long tongue for me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-chinned<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/5000, f\/6.3. ISO 640. Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0Occasionally I was able to get a shot with the bird mostly isolated from the flower and with a relatively clean background but it didn’t happen very often.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"black-chinned<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3. ISO 500. Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0This individual stood out because of four white streaks in the plumage on its forehead – here we can see two of them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"rufous<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/4000, f\/6.3. ISO 500. Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Rufous Hummingbirds were the most colorful species at the patch.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"rufous<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/4000, f\/6.3. ISO 500. Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0As they often do this one looked grumpy as it rested on its perch.\u00a0 Perhaps the black speck on top of its bill had something to do with it.\u00a0 I was pretty sure I knew what it was…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"rufous<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a01\/4000, f\/6.3. ISO 500. Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

and a large crop of the same image confirmed it.\u00a0 It’s one of several species of “no-see-ums”, tiny, annoying and often biting insects that are common on the island.\u00a0 They make me grumpy too.<\/p>\n

Lots of pollen is also evident on the bill and forehead.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"rufous<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a01\/3200, f\/6.3. ISO 500. Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM +1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the problems with photographing hummingbirds at these very large flower clusters is getting the\u00a0flower sharp.\u00a0 Camera settings that\u00a0allow enough shutter speed to freeze the motion of the bird often don’t provide enough depth of field to get the entire flower crisp.\u00a0 It’s a trade-off I’m willing to make as I’d rather have the shutter speed to mostly freeze the motion of the wings than to have a sharp flower and blurry wings.\u00a0 It’s just a matter of taste I guess…<\/p>\n

I haven’t been able to photograph these birds for several days now because of dreary, rainy weather (as I type these words I hear the continuing\u00a0deluge out my window).\u00a0 I’m hoping to get a few more chances with them before they’re gone for the winter.<\/p>\n

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

Recently I’ve spent four mornings photographing hummingbirds and sphinx moths as they fed on Rocky Mountain Bee Plant on Antelope Island. This morning I thought I’d present a rather diverse mix of Black-chinned and Rufous Hummingbird images from those sessions.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26087,"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":[3,334,392,1678],"tags":[31,2186,2174,105,2188,2179,1679,2173,2187,282,1636,311],"class_list":["post-26080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","category-hummingbirds","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-archilochus-alexandri","tag-black-chinned-hummingbird","tag-depth-of-field","tag-no-see-um","tag-rhynchokinesis","tag-rocky-mountain-bee-plant","tag-rufous-hummingbird","tag-selasphorus-rufus","tag-shutter-speed","tag-tongue","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/rufous-hummingbird-0180-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-6ME","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26080","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=26080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}