![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/black-chinned-hummingbird-8112-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"black-chinned-hummingbird-8112-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\nI believe it’s a female Black-chinned Hummingbird but I can’t be sure of the species.<\/p>\n
This past summer I was never able to photograph hummingbirds feeding on the nectar-filled blossoms of Rocky Mountain Bee Plant (Cleome). So last night I took a walk through memory lane and found this older photo I’ve never posted before. It was taken on Antelope Island on August 30, 2013, which was one of the first times I’d ever photographed hummingbirds feeding on wild bee plant.<\/p>\n
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1\/4000, f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n Normally I’m not much of a fan of the color pink but I like it here even though there’s a lot of it. I had just enough shutter speed to get her whirring wings sharp and as a bonus the entire flower cluster she’s feeding on is also sharp or sharp enough – at f\/5.6 I was fortunate (lucky) to have that happen.<\/p>\n As a biologist and teacher I also appreciate the photo for its illustration of the results of evolution. The long stamens with their greenish pollen-laden anthers on top are ideally shaped and situated to transfer sticky pollen to the feeding hummingbird who will then transfer some of the pollen to other bee plant flowers resulting in pollination. If you look carefully you can see clumps of pollen on the hummer’s bill. And the very long bill of hummingbirds has evolved to reach nectar deep in the flower.<\/p>\n A classic example of coevelution which is when two or more species reciprocally affect each other’s evolution through the process of natural selection.<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n PS – The English language drives me to distraction at times. Why is pollen spelled with an ‘e’ but in the word pollination the ‘e’ becomes an ‘i’? <\/em><\/p>\n