Image of the Month: August 2011

A rufous hummingbird extracts nectar from a scarlet gilia bloom on a hillside above Piney Lake near Vail, Colorado.

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Knowing that the birds are most attracted to flowers with red blooms, I stopped on the trail, attached a telephoto zoom lens to my camera and followed the quickly-moving hummers until they slowed down slightly in order to extract nectar from the blooms. This was the perfect moment to take a photo. I kept the autofocus locked on the birds’ eyes in order to get any sharpness in the image. While I couldn’t stop the motion of the wings (something that usually requires a setup of at least a couple flashes) I like the blurring pattern on this particular photo.

It was fun to spend about an hour watching the behavior of these birds. They are surprisingly territorial. Whenever a hummingbird from a different species (a broad-tailed hummingbird in this case) attempted to draw nectar from a bud nearby the rufous would chase them away with a strafing display of amazing aerial dogfighting skills  and a scolding of high-pitched chirps.