Birds, Blooms and Buzzing

This morning I drove out to the Burris Ranch in the Little Lake Valley to do some bird photography. It was such a beautiful morning. When I pulled into the ranch I noticed that the apple tree above my photoblind was blooming. After parking I walked up to my blind and I could smell the sweet scent of the blossoms on the breeze. I set about refilling the bird feeders. When I went to get the furthest feeder I heard a humming buzzing sound down close to my feet. I instantly froze and thought, "This can't be good." I looked all around my feet for movement as the sound continued and my eyes zoomed in onto where the sound was coming from. At first I freaked out because I thought I was standing on top of a ground wasps nest. But soon I figured out that I was right next to a Bumble Bees nest and there were about a dozen of them buzzing about. I made a happy, slow, safe retreat. I rarely find Bumble Bee nests so this is a pretty cool find. Bumble Bees are communal like Honey Bees but honey bees are far greater in both numbers and the amount of honey they store up. Bumble Bees live in a small community of roughly a dozen or so and up to 300 and they only keep a couple of small wax cups of honey that are often the size of a small tablespoon. I once got a sampling of their honey when I was much younger and it was the lightest most delicious honey I have ever tasted. After my discovery I settled into the photoblind and photographed House Finches. here is my favorite image from the morning. God's love and blessings upon your weekend, chris This image was created with a Canon 7D and a Tamron 150-600mm lens at 450mm. Camera settings used were AV mode, ISO 800, F 8.0 at 1/1,600th of a sec. The camera was supported with a Manfrotto 190 XPROB tripod with a Bogen 3055 heavy duty ballhead.