Humminbirds

I am always fascinated by hummingbirds. They have the usual: wings, beaks. But they don’t just fly—they hover, flit, swoop, etc. They come and go so fast.

Early in the summer, the Crocomia (above) blooms and it’s a real draw for the hummers. My wife Donna also fills a trio of feeders with a mix she gets from the bird shop in Covington, WA. So we have plenty of hummingbirds around.

Even so, they are non-trivial to photograph. If I don’t use a very fast shutter speed, I get smeared wings as above. Artful, perhaps, but it reminds me that hummers move at a completely different speed of life than we do. I envy them that freedom.

Plus, they work really hard. They get tiny, tiny bits of nectar from all the individual flowers on the Crocosmia. The same for most other blooms they visit: flit, fly, sip, and flit again.

Now and then, either my timing is perfect or there is enough sunlight to freeze wing motions, like this example:

Ot this, where a hopeful hummer is stymied by a not-yet-blooming wannabe blossom:

I take tons and tons of photos. Why not one more? This one is pretty scenic:

Just in case you got the idea that I just run around photographing Hummers, here’s a photo of a high-stepping crow.

Crows are a little harder to photograph than hummers. Hummingbirds seem to know how nimble and quick they are—they will let you get close with your camera and are not easily disrupted. Crows, on the other hand, overthink everything, including photographers. They are stealthy, loud, not at all subtle.