Post your best bird shots!

[Bill W]

Wickerprints;


If you like HBs, check out PBS' http://video.pbs.org/video/1380512531/


Great HB photography w/many destinations up and down the Americas.


Great photos w/the 100....

[wickerprints]

Wickerprints;


If you like HBs, check out PBS' [url="http://video.pbs.org/video/1380512531/]http://video.pbs.org/video/1380512531/[/url]


Great HB photography w/many destinations up and down the Americas.


Great photos w/the 100....
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WOW. Just... WOW. Thank you so much for the link! It appears that the video is quite recent, too. I can't imagine anybody watching this video without being left with a sense of pure wonderment and respect for hummingbirds. Wish I could visit some of the habitats of the species shown in the film; all we have here are Anna's hummingbirds, and a few other species at the zoo.


They really are just marvelous and beautiful creatures, and an absolute joy to watch. I saw the diving display of the male Anna's hummingbird on a recent trip out, and it's really funny to watch. He'll zip right up into the sky, hover for a beat, and then divebomb toward the ground at incredible speed. I have a few Anna's visiting me in my backyard (where I took the above photos), and to date I have not observed this behavior in the male, presumably because (1) there are no females present, or (2) the environment isn't suitable.


Also, thanks for the compliments on my photos...my motivation for getting the 300/4L IS was in fact to better photograph these birds. But I soon discovered that, with the appropriate setup, the 100/2.8L macro IS was a better choice. Hummingbirds are so intent on finding and guarding good nectar sources that they can quite easily overcome their skittishness around people. As such, setting up a feeder right outside my backyard door made it easy to photograph them, and the macro enabled me to fill the frame. I would sit very still and let the hummer come up to the feeder, and it was easy to get a rough estimate of where it would hover between sips. That let me catch them in flight. The main difficulty was getting enough light (resolved by using flash and an umbrella to bounce), and finding good exposure settings. I still haven't quite gotten the perfect exposure.


For the zoo shots, I use the 300/4L IS because I can't get close enough to the feeders or set up a tripod. It works all right, but to date I have not yet been able to catch them in flight--they simply don't visit the feeder frequently enough. I could wait for hours and only have a couple of chances at a shot, and even then, other patrons entering the aviary can scare the hummers away.