Hummingbirds–2011–Part I

I’m determined to get better photos of “my” hummingbirds this year, so I’m moving the feeder closer to where I sit on the porch, and vice versa.  So far I’m two arm lengths away with my camera on a tripod right behind me, using a remote shutter button, live view shooting to reduce the camera’s noise, a 1/800 shutter speed, and an 18-55 mm lens zoomed fully in to 55mm.  I’m going to have to play more with the camera settings, but here are the best results of the past two days, selected from about 120 mostly rapid burst pictures.  All of these are cropped way down with some adjustments to exposure, and color enhancements, in Photoshop.

There are 3 birds who frequent my feeder, presumably a mom and two new hatchlings.  They consume half a liter of nectar from two feeders in about 5 days.

Notice the difference in the wing positions in these two shots.  In the one on the left they are as you would expect from a bird.  In the photo on the right, the bird has them rotated from the shoulder 90 degrees vertically and is flying backwards.  “Normal” birds cannot do this.

These birds love to play.  I assume Mom is the one on the perch, but that’s just a guess.

“I got here first!  Go find another place to stick you fracking beak!

Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds are a trip.  These days I've got 3-7 of them, at all times, buzzing around together at my two feeders, which are about 30 feet apart.  My normal roosting place on the deck, where I go to have my morning coffee and read the news, sits between the two.  I often feel the need to duck as they buzz by with incredible speed and dexterity.  During the spring there was only one of them (or perhaps it was several but always one at a time -- I can't distinguish any individual traits).  But this mini-explosion of their population over the past month got me curious, so I did some thinking and a little Googling about the possible causes of this.

One reason might be that I put ant guards between the feeders and the hooks they hang on, and they work very well.  Ants gone; hummingbirds happy.  The crowd showed up within days of the ants' disappearance.  Possible coincidence; the ants did not fully deter at least one of the birds from using the feeder to sip up.

There are fewer blooms around my neck of the woods this time of year, so maybe their feeding options are more limited.  The spring flowers have gone and my honeysuckle, which the hummingbirds love, should have some blossoms but seems to be choked by an overly zealous wild grape vine.

The most important reason is probably that the newly hatched are now flying and enjoying their new found freedom from their tiny nests.  Because hummingbirds only lay two eggs a season I figure that when three of them are frolicking and feeding it is the mother bird and her two kids.  Pop is off doing whatever hummingbird fathers do, which has nothing to do with parenting or guarding the nest.  They just show up for a quicky in the spring and fly off.  But if three are from one family, who are the others?  Hummingbirds can be very territorial, so is my core family of three allowing relatives into the mix?  Hmmm, don't have an answer to that one yet.

Here are some interesting facts about hummingbirds:

• In normal flight, they beat their wings between 10 and 80 times per second.  The smaller the bird the faster their wings flap (vibrate, really).  When they really get moving, like when the males are showing off to the females with some fancy moves, they can beat up to 200 times per minute.
• Normal flight speed is between 25 and 30 mph, but some have been clocked at 65!
• Hummingbirds can rotate their wings 180 degrees.  This, and other wing features, allow it to hover, fly backwards and forwards, straight up and straight down, and sideways.
• They eat nectar by licking and collecting the fluid into tubular structures on the tongue.  They "lick" at the rate of 13 times per second (try and do that with your tongue!).  A hummingbird can consume up to 8 grams of nectar at one time and consume 50% of their body weight in sugar per day.  And this is a bird who weighs perhaps 7 grams!
• Metabolic rates in hummingbirds are extremely high and during normal daytime activity heart beats are as high as 1,250 per minute.  At night, when they need to conserve energy, heart beats drop to as low as 50 per minute.  These guys should be teaching yoga!
• Young birds begin to fly within four weeks of being hatched and mothers may continue to feed and preen them for an additional three weeks or so. This seems about right for my hummingbirds; they arrive in April or so from somewhere in Central or South America, mate and lay two eggs, and two months later their kids are flying and eating on their own.

I was so lucky when I took these pictures in mid-May.  I've been trying to take more, but they bug off when they see my camera on its tripod (the shutter noise seems to scare them) and the lighting is bad on the deck in the summer so their iridescent colors don't show well.  Maybe by late summer before they decide to head back south the lighting will improve.

Gotta admire these little critters!