Hummers

I recently had the opportunity to visit a place where there were more hummingbirds than I had ever seen in one place.  I'm sure this is small news to some people, but I had never seen 20-30 hummers flying around in the same place before.  Normally, at my house, we're lucky to see three or four at the same time.

Anyway, we drove like three hours one way to visit some folks in Terre Haute, Indiana.  They live on a residential lot that backs up to a corn field with neighbors on either side.  Apparently, they have been putting out the feeders for many years, so they had a "reputation" with the birds.  It is also getting time for migration, so the place was literally swarming with birds.

I'd like to thank my friend, Nancy, for including me in her adventure.  We had a great time there and meeting her friends with the hummingbirds.  Other than two half hour traffic jams on the way home, it was a spectacular day.  Make sure and check out her page at the link above for more hummers and sunflowers.

Here are a few of my favorite shots from the day.

I shot all of these with my Sigma 50-500mm lens in manual mode.  Some were shot at 1/250th with a flash and the rest at aperture priority f6.3.  There was a lot of available light, so, it wasn't too hard to grab one or two in focus, as I was able to get some shutters up to 1/2000.  It was interesting to note that there was only one male who was visiting all during our shooting, but as soon as we went inside, half a dozen more showed up.  It was amazing to see so many birds at one time.

Here are some shots from a few years ago, shot with my old Nikon 70-300mmG version $150.00 clunker in available light as well.  That was a miserable lens, but occasionally, I wish I had it back.  That's on my bucket list, but this time it will be the newer VR version.

These were shot from my back deck.  We had a good amount of visits that year, but this year was pretty sparse.  Maybe I should grow corn in the back yard and more birds will come. lol

If you want to see all my shots, check this link.  I'm currently combing the archives for more decent shots of hummers from the past, so maybe check back later and see if there are any additions.  Thanks for looking, and don't forget, the correct formula for hummers is 1:4 sugar to water.  Excess sugar is not good for them.