Hummingbird at my Feeder
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waltermoe: 30069493915675/comments/30069488133531
How did you take a picture of your camera with out using the camera???lol
He used a “mirror lens”. 🙃😆
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That's easy. You focus on the table, set the selftimer, snap the shutter, and then set the camera down. 🙄
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You can set that Nikon on "electric motor drive" and it shoots five pics per second.
I sit out there on my porch for an hour or so, reading my book The Guns of August. I got the camera all focused, set at 200 mm, which is 4X. I have the camera in my lap. I have done this five times in the past 2 weeks, total of 6 hours or so, I have taken over 80 pics and these are the 2 best. Very hard to get a good pic of these little birds.
I have the shutter speed at 1/500.
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For a long time, I tried to get good shots of them, also. Camera on tripod, pre-focused, shutter at 1/1000, etc...only to have the birds shy away from the feeder as long as I was there. Got a few as they came in and hovered a bit before scramming, but the time involved was more than the reward of only half-good photos. Soon gave up.
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I cheated and took the picture from inside the house looking out.
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Rocky Raab: 30069493915675/comments/30069503448987
I read 2,000 beats per minute somewhere, but I'll defer to any real ornithologist's statement.
As to photos, it is best to use a real camera. Shutter speed at its highest, open aperture, manual focus, and set for rapid fire.
Rocky, you will have much better results when in manual mode, if the ISO was increased significantly which demands a faster shutter speed, the aperture stopped down (a higher number) which greatly increases your DOF (1/3 in front and 2/3 in the rear rule). And focus on the perch portion of the feeder, the DOF will take care of being in focus.
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Thinking outside the box, you could invent a vehicle run by a thousand hummingbirds and only have to keep your tank full of sugar water.
Giving those "Greenies" some more fodder to throw our way! 😲
The box I was thinking out of was once full of animal crackers! 😁
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allen griggs: 30069493915675/comments/30069488074395
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Yeah....I don't have one of those. 😞
Nice gear!
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Great pic waltermoe.
I don't blame you for giving up Rocky. I took 80 pics in 6 hours, in half of them there is no bird! Some pics just a tailfeather.
They are elusive and mysterious animals.
Y'all are saying they perch on a branch for the night and go into some kind of hibernation. I never heard of such a thing among birds.
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Yes, they do. Have to or they'd be dead in the morning. It's called torpor. It's not a true hibernation, just an almost complete slowdown of their metabolism.
That's why it is almost criminal when people take down their feeders this time of year to "force" the birds to migrate. What they are doing is taking away their critical fuel supply. It's like somebody emptying your car's gas tank before you evacuate from a fire or hurricane.
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Much of photograhy is about the editing. Even with the ever handy phone I keep about one out of five or 6 shots. Easy edit with digital.
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These birds are about to leave my feeder, to fly to Mexico and Central America. The shortest route is to fly over the Gulf of Mexico. About 800 miles of open water.
Do the little mites fly over the Gulf, or do they fly the much longer land route?
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They fly over the Gulf, non-stop. But if they have headwinds, many of them die. There was a big Texas storm this Spring that may have killed millions of Gulf-crossing birds of all kinds.
I have two birds left, both females. They're black-chinned hummies and I just saw both of them at my back yard feeder - and naturally, they fought. Males left with the full moon on Labor Day. I've seen a migrator or two who obviously did not know the neighborhood because they acted like my feeders were new-found treats.
BTW, it is once again time to remind people to leave their feeders up. Taking them down to "force them to leave" just makes it more likely that they won't survive the trip. Let them fill their tanks.
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As Rocky says the eastern ruby throats fly across the Gulf. The western birds mass in the mountains of south east AZ and SW NM and proceed south along the mountains of central Mexico.
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That is unreal that these tiny birds can fly across such an expanse of open water.
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What speed do these birds maintain in flying over the Gulf?
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20 to 30 mph, for as long as 22 hours.
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allen griggs: 30069493915675/comments/30069459799067
That is unreal that these tiny birds can fly across such an expanse of open water.
It takes them about 18 to 24 hours depending on the weather and the winds
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Breaking news!!!🤠
For the first time in almost 40 years......when we moved back to Texas......we put a Hummingbird feeder on the back patio yesterday.
This afternoon I spotted our first hummer.........amazing creatures! Pretty wild.....as he spotted me, even though I was inside the house, and about 6 feet from the back door.
We're about 20 miles south of the Red River.......but hope to see more before Winter arrives.
"Fall" around here seems to only last about three weeks each year.🤥
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I hope you don't use any of the store packages of hummie food. The best mix for them is one part regular cane sugar and four parts water.
The mix method is: Add one cup of boiling water to one cup of sugar. Stir until it is clear and fully dissolved. Now add three cups of cold water. Boiling water kills any bad stuff in the sugar, and the cold water brings it down to usable temp. Store excess syrup in the fridge.
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Hummingbirds take a lunch break on an oil drilling platform:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjWF5p89g4w9 -
😊
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Rocky, when we put out a fresh feeder with nectar from the fridge, do the hummers and bees get brain freeze?
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I always wonder what they think when the first bird zooms in for the first cold slurp on a hot day.
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A lone sentinel watching the sunrise at 8am this morning. She perches in the sycamore tree, 30 feet away from the feeder. She stakes out the feeder so she can attack the other hummingbird that comes to get a sip.
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allen griggs: 30069493915675/comments/-1
https://us.v-cdn.net/6031683/uploads/M4LE997V3A8W/dsc-0078-jpg.jpg
A lone sentinel watching the sunrise at 8am this morning. She perches in the sycamore tree, 30 feet away from the feeder. She stakes out the feeder so she can attack the other hummingbird that comes to get a sip.
I've got one that does the same thing .....................
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They do that on almost every feeder in the country, and several other countries where they are fed. When you are that small, I guess being fast and pugnacious is what you have.
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Way up here in New York State on the Vermont border, I thought we were finished for the season for humming birds. I read that we should continue to leave out feeders until mid October for the stragglers.
Sure enough , two used the feeders yesterday...I think I'll leave the feeders up until the end of October, though I might have to get a deicer machine for their wings🙂
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I leave mine up until after the first hard frost. I think I saw the last one here on Sept 20, but I don't have eyes on my feeders much so some migrators might still be using them. I'll probably take them down about Oct 15, as usual.
I'll know it's truly winter when the first dark-eyed juncos show up. That's when I replace the hummie feeders with seed types.
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allen griggs: 30069493915675/comments/30069490274587
https://us.v-cdn.net/6031683/uploads/M4LE997V3A8W/dsc-0078-jpg.jpg
A lone sentinel watching the sunrise at 8am this morning. She perches in the sycamore tree, 30 feet away from the feeder. She stakes out the feeder so she can attack the other hummingbird that comes to get a sip.
Allen, Beautiful pic
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