{"id":32482,"date":"2015-07-04T06:21:08","date_gmt":"2015-07-04T12:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=32482"},"modified":"2015-07-04T07:03:12","modified_gmt":"2015-07-04T13:03:12","slug":"hummingbirds-and-rocky-mountain-bee-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2015\/07\/04\/hummingbirds-and-rocky-mountain-bee-plant\/","title":{"rendered":"Hummingbirds And Rocky Mountain Bee Plant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rocky Mountain Bee Plant is a hummingbird magnet. A showy, native species it is often found in disturbed areas in the west. It has a beautiful flower but an unpleasant odor and is largely avoided by livestock. The nectar filled blossoms attract a wide variety of pollinators including bees, butterflies, moths and\u00a0wasps. It was important culturally for Native Americans (one common name is Navajo spinach) and is still used as a source of yellow-green dye for their beautiful wool rugs and blankets.<\/p>\n

And hummingbirds simply love it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"rufous<\/p>\n

\u00a01\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bee plant attracts all sorts of hummingbird species including Broad-tailed, Black-chinned,\u00a0Calliope and these Rufous Hummingbirds.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"rufous\u00a01\/3200, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0They flit from flower cluster to flower cluster collecting the abundant nectar as the whir of their wings fills the air.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"rufous<\/p>\n

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

They defend feeding territories and their skirmishes are a delight to watch. And I can’t think of a better situation for the photographer to hone his\/her skills than at a wildflower patch buzzing with hummingbirds – the little rascals will certainly challenge your focusing, timing and other skills and they’re guaranteed to provide amusement to assuage your photographic frustrations.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"white-lined<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a01\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon<\/em> EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/p>\n

If\u00a0you’re lucky White-lined Sphinx Moths will also appear at the bee plant. They compete with hummingbirds for nectar (they’re also called hummingbird moths) and I’ve seen them both chase each other off the flowers.<\/p>\n

Hummingbirds are most often photographed at feeder setups or in back yard gardens but I much prefer to\u00a0photograph them in a more natural setting so I’m always on the lookout for Rocky Mountain Bee Plant. These hummingbirds (and the moth) were photographed last August on Antelope Island when the island had several\u00a0patches of bee plant close to roads and available for photography but\u00a0so far this year bee plant on the island seems to be very scarce.<\/p>\n

It’s still too early for it to bloom around here so maybe I’m just missing it and once August rolls around I’ll once again have an absolute blast photographing nectar feeders at bee plants on the island.<\/p>\n

Happy Independence Day everyone!<\/p>\n

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

Rocky Mountain Bee Plant is a hummingbird magnet.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32488,"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":[31,2554,2555,1679,2173,2187,311,2170],"class_list":["post-32482","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-hummingbirds","tag-navajo-spinach","tag-rocky-mountain-bee-plant","tag-rufous-hummingbird","tag-selasphorus-rufus","tag-utah-2","tag-white-lined-sphinx-moth"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/rufous-hummingbird-1161b-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-8rU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32482","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=32482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}