Posts in Category: hummingbird
Faceoff: Brown Violet-ear Hummingbirds
Brown Violet-ear Hummingbirds, Rio Santiago Resort, Hondruas
I have mentioned before that the Brown Violet-ear Hummingbirds were so dominent on this trip to Honduras (the Point and Shoot Nature Photographer adventure at the Lodge at Pico Bonito) that they suppressed the numbers of other species that we saw. They also got in each others’ way a lot 🙂 We saw a lot of confrontations between hummers competing for the same feeders and the same space. The Brown Violet-ear is not a flashy bird by hummingbird standards, but it makes up for it in attitude!
Sony RX10iii at 530mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 640 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.
Brown Violet Ear Hummingbird
Brown Violet-ear Hummingbird, Rio Santiago Resort, Honduras
The dominant Hummingbird species on our visit to Rio Santiago Resort in the North Coastal mountains of Honduras, by a ratio of 25 to 1, was the Brown Violet-ear. Rio Santiago Resort is actually a small lodge with a few cabins that is justly renowned for the numbers of hummingbirds and the numbers of hummingbird species that work feeders, too many to count, that they maintain. There were certainly hundreds, maybe thousands, of BVEs working the feeders at the lodge. For that reason, we saw far fewer species at the feeders than we expected. Even the most aggressive species, like the Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds, were kept at bay by the sheer numbers of BVEs. This shot, which actually shows the “violet ears”, was taken in the deep shade of the thatched roof over the open air restaurant/bar at the lodge. The roof is lined with maybe 50 feeders, and there are always a hundred or more hummers buzzing overhead while you eat. It is hard to imagine the density of hummers. I was able to stand at at less than 3 feet from the wire supporting the feeders and frame as many BVEs as I wanted. It was dark under there, and this shot was taken at a very high ISO…but it is exactly the kind of shot the Sony JPEG engine does best with, even at such an elivated ISO. Lots of fine detail and a blank background. Sony’s noise reduction routines work very well here.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. 1/250th @ ISO 6400 @ f4. Processed in Lightroom.
Rufous-tailed Hummingbird. Rio Santiago Honduras
Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, Rio Santiago Nature Lodge, Honduras
Outside here in Southern Maine, we are well into a spring snowstorm. About 3 inches on the ground as I write this and perhaps another 3 expected before noon. On the second day of spring! That is life in the northern latitudes. So, as an antidote, we will drop back 6 weeks to my time in Honduras, and the Rufous-tailed Hummingbird taken at the Rio Santiago Nature Lodge on the slopes of Pico Bonito.
I will return to Hondruas in June, at the height of hummingbird season, and we will spend at least one day at Rio Santiago. You can come too! It is a Point and Shoot Nature Photography adventure. Bring you camera and a Point and Shoot attitude, and we will have a lot of fun with the birds, mammals, butterflies, flowers, and landscapes of Honduras, all from the comfort of the the world class Lodge at Pico Bonito…in the company of fellow Point and Shoot photographers. Great photo ops, good learning, and great people. Visit my Point and Shoot Nature Photographer site for more information.
Nikon P900 at 1500mm equivalent field of view. 1/400th @ ISO 640 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom. (We will have lots of time to learn to photograph hummers like this, and, for those who want it, even instruction in post processing).
This is your chance. Great pricing for a great Point and Shoot photo adventure.
Anna’s Hummingbird
Anna’s Hummingbird. Famosa Slough, San Diego CA
I spent my first morning in San Diego, as I generally do, at Famosa Slough, a urban wetland which is basically between my hotel and the convention center where they hold the San Diego Birding Festival…pretty much in downtown San Diego…or at least in downtown Point Lomas. It is maybe a half mile inland from the San Diego River mouth and the Pacific Ocean, in a little basin with a wide channel flowing out of it. I don’t know the history of the place, but I admire the instincts of those who fought to preserve the wetlands, against what must have been pretty intense pressure to drain and build. It is literally surrounded on all but one side by apartment buildings and condos, and the forth side is bounded by the expressway. My friend Rich came out to San Diego a day early and had already visited Famosa. He emailed to say “your hummingbird is still there.” There are actually at least 2 resident hummingbirds…or perhaps it is more accurate to say that there are two frequented perches. I have no idea if the hummingbirds I see on the those perches year after year, day after day, or moment to moment are always the same hummingbirds. One perch is frequented by Black-chinned Hummingbirds, the western cognate of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, and the other is frequented by Anna’s Hummingbirds. Over the years I have noticed that neither species likes to sit facing the sun, so it is difficult at Famosa to get a gorget shot like the one above. Patience. Patience. And more patience. I won’t say luck, because I don’t believe in the stuff, but certainly you have to be in the right place at the right time, and the recipient of a small measure of grace. 🙂 This Anna’s Hummingbird showing the full helmet is the only full gorget shot I got yesterday, and I took a lot of pics!
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/800th @ ISO 100 @ f6.5. Processed and cropped slightly for composition in Lightroom.
Long-billed Hermit
Long-billed Hermit. Rio Santiago Nature Lodge, Honduras
I have never seen a Long-billed Hermit perched. Never. I have seen them flying in the rain-forest. I have heard them calling, presumably from a perch, in dense foliage, and I have seen them at feeders at the Lodge at Pico Bonito and Rio Santiago Nature Lodge, but once they left the feeder, I could not track them to their perch. Therefore I had to resort to feeder shots at the Rio Santiago Nature Lodge for my pics. This is a big hummer…and I did not even catch the full length of the tail. If you look closely you will see that 1/3 of the long bill is inside the feeder tube.
Nikon P900 at 700mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/400th @ ISO 100 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom.
Violet Saberwing
Violet Saberwing. Rio Santiago Nature Lodge, Honduras
This is another set from Rio Santiago Nature Lodge, high on the shoulder of the mountain near Pico Bonito National Park. Their many feeders attract a wide variety of hummingbirds year-round. This is the Violet Saberwing, one of the larger tropical rain forest hummingbirds, and certainly one of the more spectacular. It is also one of the most common.
Nikon P610 and P900 at various focal lengths and exposures. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
White-necked Jacobin
White-necked Jacobin
I sat for most of an hour in the little gazebo-like tower on the back of the Rio Santiago Nature Lodge, in a chair at one of the tables, and photographed hummingbirds as they rested in the trees between me and the feeders. This is a White-necked Jacobin. You can just see the white patch at the nape of the neck that gives it its name. Besides being a portrait of the bird, I like the out of focus branches which provide a frame and a context for the bird.
Nikon P900 at 1100mm equivalent field of view. 1/400th @ ISO 280 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom.
Woodnympth at the feeder
Crowned Woodnmypth, Rio Santiago Lodge, Honduras
Part of what makes Rio Santiago Lodge a great place for Hummingbird photography is how close you can get to the feeders. If you sit on the terrace under the thatched roof of the open-air restaurant, there are feeders hanging just above your head. Moving around in the restaurant is a challenge because if you are not careful you will bump your head on a feeder and get showered in sugar water (or get skewered by a Long-billed Hermit or Saberwing :). Even on the open slope above the lodge where most of the feeders are, you can sit within 8 feet of an active feeder. That makes shots like this possible. This is another Crowned Woodnmpth using one of the home-made feeders off the deck above the lodge.
Nikon P610 at 1440mm equivalent. Shutter preferred. 1/320th @ ISO 1000 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Crowned Woodnymth
Crowned Woodnymth, Rio Santiago Lodge, Honduras
This is a collage of two shots of the Crowned-Woodnymth Hummingbird taken at Rio Santiago Lodge, in the high rainforest of Honduras. Rio Santiago maintains nearly a hundred feeders on the slope above the lodge, and on the terrace by the outdoor restaurant, and attracts too many hummingbirds to count, During the height of the season, June and July, they go through 435 pounds of sugar a week. I have only visited in February, but I will be back in late June this year. The best part of Rio Santiago, however, is not the feeders, but the abundance of natural perches and blooming flowers, which makes hummingbird photography there, as far as I am concerned, a unique experience.
The Crowned Woodnymth, which was, until recently, called the Violet-crowned Woodnymth, is one of the most colorful of Central American hummingbirds. Blue, green, violet, and black shimmer in almost any light…each so intense that it just about overloads the digital sensor in your camera. I am not sure why they took the violet from its crown. I suspect it is a relumping of some of the closely related crowned woodnympths, which were once considered a single species, then split, and now lumped back together again. This collage shows a bit of the attitude of the bird too. It is a feisty little thing, well capable of seizing its share of the sugar water. It is also one of the more common of Honduran Hummers, so you see a lot of them, both at the Lodge at Pico Bonito, and at the Rio Santiago Lodge.
Two frames from the Nikon P610 at 1100mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/320th @ ISO 1400 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage. If you are interested in joining me in June at the Lodge at Pico Bonito and Rio Santiago Lodge, check out the information on the trip at Point and Shoot Nature Photographer.Â
Stripe-throated Hermit
Stripe-throated Hermit, Rio Santiago, Honduras
The tiny Stripe-throated Hermit, which can, in comparison to the other hummers around it (and especially to its much larger hermit counterpart…the Long-billed Hermit), appear not much bigger than a large bumble bee, is indeed one of the smallest hummingbirds in Central America…one of the smallest hummingbirds anywhere for that matter. It does not stand out in coloration either…rufous brown over most of its body, with just a hint of rarely seen greenish iridescence over its head and shoulders, and a white-bordered black bandit’s mask on the face. The stripes on the throat that give it its name are often so faint as to be barely visible. What it lacks in size and flash though, it makes up in aerobatics. It feeds on the nectar of flowers in flight, and often, as in these images, pierces the base of flowers to extract nectar it could not otherwise reach. It is a fun hummingbird to watch, and often appears to prefer flower feeding, even when there are many human-tended sugar-water feeders around. You have to admire its independence.
Nikon P610 at 1440mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred @ 1/320th. ISO 1000 at f6.5. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.