Category: Uncategorized

Aside from late in the afternoon and early morning, this is the pattern.

Bird A bird lands on the feeder with his head on a swivel.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Then you see the look which means

********INCOMING********

• 

Bird M flies in like an F/A-18 Super Hornet narrowly missing Bird A.

• 

• 

Bird M’s Lookout

• 

For perspective, this branch is maybe 30 feet from the feeder.

• 

Lather, rinse, repeat. There seems to be a bit of a break early in the morning and later in the afternoon and early evening. Bird M seems to take a break from his protective duty.

End of July in NC it’s hummingbird fight season. It’s hard to get a good shot of anyone in the flowers. As soon as anyone hovers, a young male shoots from the trees and chases them off.

Happened to be shooting the red throated bird on the right and another bird landed. You can see the quick retreat which happened in seconds.

Had to brighten these up quite a bit but the quality is good. Still testing my new camera in low light conditions, which is one reason I bought it.

Not the normal brilliant green feathers we are used to. They look mottled and kind of spotty. It’s officially Hummingbird Molting Season.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Been adjusting to my new camera and lens. Not just shooting but the workflow is completely different. Honestly can’t believe Lightroom doesn’t work seamlessly with Nikon.

The orange hummingbird mint is always so beautiful in pictures but I’ve been trying to get a shot in the red salvia. I like the contrast of the dreamy mint with the drama of the salvia.

Got some good shots with the red salvia. Well I got a lot of bad shots too. Struggling with my new camera and lens.

I do love when I get close enough to see the pollen on top of the beak. They go into those buds and they come out with pollen on their nose!

A progression of the “Gene Simmons of birds” (credit @JohnDooley) tongue going in and out .

Just look at the beak though. It’s barely open.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Hummingbird tongues are at least twice as long as their long beaks. They have to be so they can get nectar from the tubular flowers they prefer. I never had a shot of this until today.

Look carefully and you can see the beak slightly open so he (it’s a red throat) can stick his tongue out.

I’m guessing he’s a juvenile male — b/c he’s sticking his tongue out right? Just kidding!!!!!

Watched a nice ballet last night. It was as if the dancers were dancing on air. They were incredibly agile and there was plenty of drama. I think we can all agree that the flexibility of the dancer who played the part of the Bee was out of this world!

BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

I know nothing about butterflies but while waiting for hummingbirds I saw a few. I had no idea that the butterflies became so covered in pollen. If you zoom into the first two photos you can see the yellow pollen just everywhere.

This guy is milking the heck out of this flower which has seen better days, is on it’s last leg, fading fast, etc.

Great light contributed to some clean shots.