hummers at last

Those are amazing shots and I really lvoe how clear they come through.
Please post away!!!! :)

MsC

Lily, you definitely have a good relationship with that camera!! All of your pictures are just amazing!!

I could never get tired of them!!!!

Beautiful pics Lily, I just love the Lantana one!

The last lantana pic seems to follow all the rules of photography. Wonderful pic. It is marketable.

All beautiful pics!

Gee thanks everybody! Now that my DH and DS are off to England for the Boy Scout World Jamboree I have a lot more time for playing in the yard. As soon as the hummer feeder spot gets sunny again I am going to try a little bit higher shutter speed and see what happens. :-)

Fabulous photos! Keep 'em coming!

Thanks again everyone! Its supposed to be stormy and rainy here all week so it looks like pics will be on hold unless we get a sunny break in the storm front here and there. Here are a few I got yesterday. They aren't quite as sharp and clear because I had to lower the shutter speed. It never got sunny enough to get anything good on 2500 so I went down to 1600.

I'm thinking this was a different hummer - not the little male who has been frequentling the feeder. I didn't get a good look at the throat area. I did notice that this one has a little powdery pollen hat!

The good news about all the rain coming through is that maybe I will give the inside of the house a little much needed attention lol.

Here's little miss pollen head again. I didn't get her centered in the frame very well. She is zooming toward a nectery bloom like a little SST.

Last one for today. I am making a mental note to plant more lanatana next year. I do have some along the edge of my hot colors bed but they really didn't have a good year this year. Last year they got to be the size of small shrubs and this year they hardly increased in size at all. I'm chalking it up to the severe drought we had up until recently.

Very nice shots! Are you doing this hand held or w/ tripod?

Thanks Pell. With a tripod. My telephoto doesn't have any built in stabilization so anything hand held is really blurry.

Is this the 200mm lens?

Is that a Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Blue'? Beautiful!

spelling edit

This message was edited Jul 24, 2007 11:42 AM

Hi guys! Yes on both counts. I am using a 200mm telephoto.

You have a good eye claypa! That is Black and Blue salvia. The hummers really like it. It usually over winters here but I lost a few of them this past very early spring when we had 2 weeks of freezing weather after everything had started "waking up".

Lily, I am absolutely loving your photos!!! About B & B Salvia - I though I would lose mine for sure this year because we had so much freezing weather, but they did return and are just beginning to bloom!

That salvia seems to be their favorite flower to visit in my hummingbird garden. So glad I got several!

That's good news, I'd like to try it. I figured out why I couldn't find it in plantfiles, I've been misspelling 'guaranitica'.
I only recognized it from a thread in the Salvia forum right now, someone nearby here is growing it too.

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/745225/

It really is beautiful, claypa... foliage and blooms alike! And there are LOTS of blooms on mine and the hummers love it. Odd, it not being red... but they hit it every time they come to the garden.

Lily...Your photos inspired me so much that I bought seven Lantanas when I got off from work today.

Frank

She did the same for me and I bought some too. I have them in pots sitting on plant stands just below the feeders, also bought 2 Black & Blue Salvia.

Here's a female on the feeder above them.

Oops, sorry Lily; didn't mean to post a pic in your thread!

This message was edited Aug 2, 2007 8:52 PM

Lilyfan, what awesome pictures!!!! Really, they are just spectacularly clear - looks like some should be in a nature magazine!

Thats true! You should submit them somewhere, I'm sure they would be just as successful as your flower photos!

lilyfan,
Thanks so much for your fantastic photos! Your photos were so wonderful not only have I added the black and blue salvia to my "next year" list, but I dragged DH in here to show him. I want a new camera, and I really want to upgrade to a Nikon....thanks for the "ammunition" ;)

Oh gee guys, you are making me blush here!! Thanks so much for all the nice comments!

I'm so glad you are all liking the black and blue salvia too. When I first started using it I had to buy it mail order. Now I can find it at Lowes! And please post away any hummer pics you all get! I would love to see them. :-) Yay Pell, that is one cute little hummer there on your feeder!

Susybell, I have to warn you though... once you get a digital camera and see how much fun it is you are going to be tempted to just forget about things like dishes and laundry lol.

Frank, I hope you have good luck with your lantanas too. I love these annuals. Next year I am going to plant more of them than I did this year.

it has been SO rainy and stormy here! I had a tree fall on my neighbor's fence this week and just finished the clean up of their yard and fence today. I hope it gets sunny soon so I can get more pictures as there has been a lot of activity at the feeders and I know they won't be here a whole lot longer. :-(

Hi lilyfan, Actually, I've had a digital camera for several years, but it's getting long in the tooth, low in the battery, and slow in the shutter (so to speak...) . ;) I won't list my frustrations with it-it's served me well, but I'm ready for something a little more capable. I'm finding particularly now that I'm trying to take flower pictures that it's very poor at macro-type shots, and that's a bit of a problem.

Pelle, great hummer photo - felt like I could reach out and pet him!

I had 2 close in encounters w/ Hummers two days in a row. First a beautiful fully mature male came up to my face checking me out. The humming from his wings was so loud! I chalked it up to the fact that I was wearing bright red shorts. Then the very next day a female did the same thing ( no red shorts this time) she stayed a longer time really looking me over; my face , both shoulders and one hand. They are very curious and of course so cute.

Hummers are so great! We've got year-round populations of Anna's here and also migratory Rufous. I didn't really see any Rufous earlier this summer, but now I think there are two and it's fun noticing the differences. I think they sort of sneak around behind the male "Anna's" who guards the feeder. So, I see them at flowers more than the feeder. They actually seem more daring than the Anna's. I was sitting in my deck chair the other day, which is right in front of a pineapple sage that has ONE blooming stalk less than a foot from my head and BZZZZZZZZ. I froze, afraid to turn my head, but whether it was staring at me or visiting my flowers, it was so close it was actually fanning my hair. It's so much fun when they give you the "once over", too. This tiny little bird right up in your face!

lilyfantn ..

Hi Magpye!

Thanks for the welcome! It's not late, I just found this forum! :)

And, good point-dishes? laundry? What're they? ;)

I just got an extraordinary look at one of my visiting Rufous. He's a young male just getting his gorget. So far, he has four brilliant copper feathers at his throat. I was weeding a bed that has blooming red coral bells, Agastache "Firebird" and a Crocosmia 'Lucifer' that I just added (went for instant gratification this time...) and he came along and visited all three right in front of me! He was really, really close. Unbelievable!

After being inspired by Lily's photos of hummers and flowers I bought lantana yesterday. Today by the time I got home from work the hummers had already discovered the lantanas. They are not perfect photos but we have a late frost here and I have plenty of time to practice.

and another

Doggone it - I forgot to buy some Lantana!! Well, I'll be at a big sale at one of my favorite nurseries in Seattle on Sunday so maybe they'll have some . . . otherwise, I think they had them at the Ace Garden Center that i spend a LOT of time at!!!

Nice photos, Frank!!! Keep practicing so we get to see more hummers!

Loved hearing about the personal encounters - they are such a treat, aren't they!

Thank you Lily for inspiring us. I am sure the nurseryman thanks you too. Most years lantana survives the winter here. It is a favorite for businesses to use for their landscaping. Speaking of winter. We have some people here who keep hummer feeders out any time the temperature is above freezing. Others say they should not because it keeps hummers here too late. What is everyone's thoughts on this?

We have Anna Hummingbirds year round so I do put it out - just have to keep an eye on it if it freezes.

I was just reading about keeping feeders out. The article I read said that keeping feeders out will prevent them from migrating was a myth. They'll migrate when it's time to migrate regardless. I found it through a link I found through DG someplace, I think in another hummer thread.

Murmur,
We used a floodlamp to keep our nectar from freezing last winter. We clamped it to the feeder pole about 2ft lower than the feeder and it kept the nectar thawed despite a few chilly nights in the teens.

It is a myth. Sometimes you'll hear of a Rufous overwintering here on the east coast but its not because of feeders. Of course its lucky for them that the people had seen them and did put feeders out or had left them out and then called a hummingbird bander, They were trapped and taken south.
Maybe the little guys just had something wrong with their migrating instinct or some other problem had occured. The one I remember reading about was in Maryland, it was 20 degrees out w/ snow on the ground.

I always leave my feeders out a month or more past the date they say too just because of ones that may have had to stay behind because of injuries or something else.

This message was edited Aug 4, 2007 7:00 AM

The winter distribution of Rufous Hummer (and to a lesser extent Allen's) is being influenced by feeders - increased survival of stray birds with a mutation causing them to head east instead of south, has resulted in these birds passing on their genes for eastbound migration, instead of dying.

This pic was posted a couple of years ago by someone (I forget who) on another forum, hope the original poster won't mind my copying it here. Somewhere in KY if I remember rightly. Photo 9 January 2004, temperature minus something ghastly (and it stayed all winter, came through just fine, migrating back in April sometime). Just goes to show how hardy they are, provided they have access to a reliable feeder.

Resin

Edit: Found the original thread, it's here:
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=11457
Yes, it was in KY. One night it came through -20°C, without trouble.


This message was edited Aug 4, 2007 8:38 PM