More Hummingbirds

[yourlibrarian]

It's always that case come August and September that we start seeing hummingbirds chasing one another off from the feeder. So far we've only seen two but we've seen up to four at once. Naturally they could all perch and feed at the same time but they'd rather fight.



Perhaps because of the extra energy being spent or because they're bulking up to migrate, they start paying more attention to all the balcony plants, attempting to drink from them. I was particularly amused by these shots of one hummingbird with a closing giant hibiscus bloom. The blooms are already about 5-6 inches across and big enough to close the hummingbird up inside it.

Comments

[shirebound]

Those are wonderful shots!

[yourlibrarian]

They're speedy so not that easy, alright!

[aurumcalendula]

These are awesome photos!

[yourlibrarian]

Thanks!

[earthspirits]

Lovely photos. Humming birds are such delightful little creatures.

[yourlibrarian]

They're great fun to watch alright :)

[leecetheartist]

Have you considered posting your photos to https://www.inaturalist.org/ ? You can contribute to science by basically doing what you do anyway. You can find groups in your area that can really use you contribution for biodiversity projects.

I've started doing it recently - this is me and my contributions so far so I'd love to buddy anyone from here who goes on there. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?user_id=aliciasmith

Anyway, just a thought. I see such lovely work on here.

[yourlibrarian]

That's a wonderful project! I'm afraid I'd never keep up with it though. I post all my pics on Pillowfort and am constantly forgetting to share any here, since DW is a lot clunkier when it comes to image sharing (plus there are limits). So I know I'd never remember to take notes and include the photos there. But I'm glad that there are so many crowdsourcing science opportunities available.

[leecetheartist]

It's a pretty funky app, it takes the metadata from your photo, the where, and the when, and it'll even offer to try and i.d the thing for you. I wouldn't be half as enthusiastic about it if not. It's really easy. Where I'm really struggling is loading my stuff from the early years of digital camera usage, and before google photos. But stuff I'm snapping now is a breeze!

[yourlibrarian]

Definitely helpful, though I rarely use my phone for these photos. It's almost always our digital camera because of its zoom capability.

[leecetheartist]

Likewise, mostly digital camera for me, it all then goes into Google Photos, and it's all pretty painless. Except when I'm doing uploads from 2012 when geotagging was not such a thing, and I have to work out where I was!

[turlough]

Fabulous photos!

[yourlibrarian]

Thanks!

[cmcmck]

They are amazing.

The smallest birds we get locally are the wren, firecrest and goldcrest- tiny, but all bigger than these.

[yourlibrarian]

Yes their sounds are particularly interesting -- the humming buzz of their wings makes it seem like a large insect heading towards you!