You may enlarge any image in this blog by clicking on it. Click again for a detailed view.
I’ve gone out several times this year with the express purpose of photographing hummingbirds. So far, my only success has been with Broad-billed Hummingbirds. It’s not that I haven’t seen other species — I have. But so far, I’ve had no luck in capturing images of them. The Broad Bills, however, invariably give me a few images.
One reason for my disproportionate success with this species is that Broad-billed Hummingbirds are relatively ubiquitous in southern Arizona. They are fond of wooded areas and canyon bottoms with streams running through them, but they show up elsewhere, as well, including occasionally at backyard feeders. I’m pretty much guaranteed to encounter these little beauties if I go to certain locations, such as Madera Canyon, where I photographed this individual.
The species’ commonness in southern Arizona is a bit ironic because Broad-billed Hummingbirds show up almost nowhere else in the United States. What is a rare bird elsewhere in this country is a fairly common sight here.
There is another reason why my captures seem invariably to be of Broad-billed Hummingbirds, and that has to do with their style of feeding. Broad Bills have a distinctive feeding style. An individual will fly to a food source — a feeder in the case of today’s image — land and feed for a second or two, then back off and hover at distance of a few centimeters before resuming feeding. It will do that over and over again. That gives me the opportunity to pre-focus my camera on a spot just away from the feeder and wait for the bird to fly into range. Other species, by contrast, eschew the hovering in lieu of flying directly to the food source. I have no interest in photographing a hummingbird if it is sitting on a garish red and yellow plastic feeder, so those birds aren’t acceptable subjects even if I see a lot of them.
Perseverance is a critical element of nature photography. I’ll keep making hummingbird forays this summer. Eventually, I’ll score something other than Broad-billed Hummingbirds, I just don’t know when.
Image made with a Canon R5, Canon EF 400mm f4 DO II lens+ Canon EF 1.4x telextender, supported by monopod, M setting (auto ISO), ISO 8000, f5.6 @ 1/2000.
Sonoran Images 