{"id":71846,"date":"2019-05-16T05:48:20","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T11:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=71846"},"modified":"2019-05-16T07:27:26","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T13:27:26","slug":"fighting-broad-tailed-hummingbirds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/16\/fighting-broad-tailed-hummingbirds\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighting Broad-tailed Hummingbirds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Any bird photographer who thinks they’re skilled at tracking birds in flight should attempt to photograph hummingbird aerial combat. It’s a humbling experience.<\/p>\n

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This is one of the Broad-tailed Hummingbirds I photographed two days ago in the mountains of the west desert as they were feeding on and fighting over a flowering currant bush. The bird was resting on another nearby bush.<\/p>\n

As I looked at it through my lens I was marveling at all the colors I was seeing. Depending on where you draw the line between one color and another I count over a dozen different colors on this bird and many of them are luminescent. It’s no wonder that hummingbirds are often referred to as the “jewels of the bird world”. In fact several species are named after precious jewels.<\/p>\n

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As I was watching the bird I noticed an unexpected flurry of activity at the upper left corner of my viewfinder and realized that another hummer had come in to challenge it.<\/p>\n

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So I quickly attempted to focus on the intruder.<\/p>\n

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A different crop of the previous image reveals how close they were. And they were about to get closer.<\/p>\n

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The intruder stuck its tail right in the other bird’s face, so close that it appears they might be touching. The rude affront was a little too much for the perched bird so…<\/p>\n

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it took off from its perch to meet the challenge.<\/p>\n

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This is the last shot I was able to get as the intruder assumed a defensive posture to meet the oncoming bird.<\/p>\n

Hummingbird fights can be very serious business, even deadly. Experienced New Mexico wild bird rehabber Mikal Deese made the following comment on yesterday’s post about the results of a Black-chinned Hummingbird fight. The comment was made late and I’m sure many readers never saw it so I’m including it here.<\/p>\n