Fellow Birders,
As Ed Talbott mentioned in a previous post, my wife Lynda, and I went today
(the 11th) to the home of BCBC club members, Johnnie and Betty Ratliff, to
attempt to get photos of the Selasphorous hummer that has been coming often
to their window feeder.We arrived at their home around 10:30. The bird had
been there six times already. I set up the tripod with my Canon EOS D60
digital camera. The window feeder was no more than a couple of inches from
the glass. Because the bird was going to be backlit I decided to take a few
photos with natural light, then switch to flash to insure a decent photo.
Since the temperature was staying in the upper 30's with fine snow falling I
wanted to give the bird time to drink its fill before using the flash. I
suspected that the flash might frighten him away. I also had to make sure
that the camera was not facing the window at a 90 degree angle in order to
avoid flash reflection.
After waiting about an hour the hummer flew in, and as planned I took a few
natural light shots before switching to flash. When I took the first flash
photo the bird didn't leave, so I continued taking shots. The handsome male
ignored the flash and continued to feed for about two minutes before
leaving. About 30 minutes later he was back. I then took several more
photos. In spite of the fact that I was shooting through the window the
photos turned out pretty well. You can see four of them at the Buchanan
County Bird Club web site at
http://www.bcplnet.org/birdclub/gallery/Hummer2.htm
Many thanks to the Ratliffs for their generous hospitality.
Enjoy the hummers,even in winter,
Roger Mayhorn
Grundy, VA
Buchanan County Bird Club
You are subscribed to VA-BIRD. To post to this mailing list, simply send email
to va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx. To unsubscribe, send email to
va-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field.
