Larry Ditto Nature Photography

Late last week, we finally got a weather front strong enough to create rain.  With it came a fresh wave of migrating hummingbirds, mostly ruby-throated and black-chinned, through south Texas.  Our resident buff-bellied hummingbirds seemed to enjoy the slightly cooler weather.  At our house, the birds were sharing three feeders…most of them preferring a single feeder by the patio.  There was lots of activity on Thursday during a drizzling rain.

Immature Buff-bellied Hummingbird on the wing in south Texas.

The feeder had a guardian female ruby-throated hummingbird which had no problem driving away the larger buff-bellies.  Nevertheless, all the birds got chances to dash in and steal an occasional drink.

Juvenile female Ruby-throated Hummingbird hovering near feeder.

I elected to use the rainy weather for some high-speed flash photography of our hummingbirds.  If you haven’t tried it, you are missing something special.  Some would say all that lighting creates photographs that just aren’t “real”, but it gave me a special look into the lives of hummingbirds on the wing.  Paul Denman and I had been discussing hummingbird photography for several weeks, and we had been doing some research on the subject.  One of the first things we discovered was that several flashes (at least 5) would be needed to do it right, so we had to pool our resources of light stands, tripods and flashes. 

Buff-bellied Hummingbird in autumn, McAllen, Texas

Once we were set up and ready to go to work, we made a terrible discovery…only one of us at a time could shoot.  We had every flash pointed at the feeder, including a “master” flash connected by a chord to one camera.  It was mighty tough watching all that activity and seeing someone else getting the photos while I had to sit on the sidelines.  It was an opportunity for us to practice patience.  As a result, we both got some shots we think are pretty special.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird working its way around the fruits of an Anaqua tree in south Texas

Yesterday, 5 days after our first try at this, we traveled up river with all that equipment and new-found knowledge to find even more hummingbirds.  In Zapata, we were welcomed by Dr. Letty Volpe and her husband, John Williams, to their butterfly/hummingbird garden at the Seedeater Inn Bed & Breakfast.  The birds (15-20, at least) were swarming.  We had a great afternoon working the birds at feeders and flowers.  Some of you are, no doubt, experts at this, so you might see some flaws in my technique, but I’m learning and having a blast with this.  In fact, I plan to go ahead and get fully equpped so I can share this approach to bird photography at some future workshops.

Black-chinned Hummingbird feeding at Rocky Mountain Bee Plant flowers in Zapata, Texas

Here are a few of my favorite photos from the past few days:

Black-chinned Hummingbirds feeding at Rocky Mountain Bee Plant bloom, Zapata, Texas

Buff-bellied Hummingbird feeding at Turk's Cap, south Texas

Ruby-throated Hummingbird hovering near Turk's Cap bloom.

Young Ruby-throated Hummingbird feeding at sunflower in autumn, south Texas.

Adult Buff-bellied Hummingbird in flight, McAllen, Texas

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 at 9:54 pm and is filed under Newsletter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.