Thursday, April 8, 2010

First Hummers


Over the past week the Hummingbirds have begun arriving at my feeders. Now they start coming in force on their migration north up the coastal range of California. This has driven my resident Anna's Hummingbird crazy.All winter long she has had the feeder pretty much to herself. Now she is wearing herself out trying to drive off all these interlopers.

I helped her out by adding my whole smorgasborg of feeders that I put up in the summer. I usually keep about six feeders up until late fall. It takes a lot of work keeping them cleaned and filled. But it's worth the effort to see these winged jewels flying by.

There has been an interesting mix of mostly Rufous and Anna's along with one dark hummingbird that I have only gotten glimpses of and haven't identified. Hopefully it will stay around long enough for me to figure it out. So far all I can tell is that it is larger than an Anna's and it has a little bit of purple on it.

Today I just stood by the feeders and took a few passing shots with a single flash just to see what I could capture. Here is the result with a flower added where the feeder had been. Later on I'll set up my lighting system with backgrounds and flowers. A lot of work but it yields better results.

The best site for hummingbird photography is found here.

http://www.rpphoto.com/howto/hummer/humguide1.asp

Ralph is an incredibly talented photographer.

God's Light and Blessings to All,

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