Category Archives: Hummingbirds

Magicians in the Air

Hummingbirds

 

 

Hummingbirds can fly at speeds of up to 50mph. Not bad for such a tiny bird!  But that is far from their most remarkable achievements.   The flying abilities of hummingbirds allow them to produce dazzling speeds. They need that speed in order not just to find flowers, but get at the nectar before their competitors, other hummingbirds, interfere with them. They also like to avoid photographers. Then they need to fly and react fast.

The flight of the hummingbird is one of the marvels of the natural world. Hummingbirds are able to rotate their wings at the shoulder because of their modified wing bones.

A couple of years ago, I watched a wonderful TV show, Magic in the Air. In it Professor Doug Aufschuler, interviewed on the show called them “some of the most elite athletes of the animal world.”  That is surely no exaggeration. They can fly, not just backwards, but in a figure 8 pattern. They can also  fly briefly fly upside down.

Hummingbirds need a lot of fuel each day because “their metabolism is stuck in overdrive,” as the television show aptly put it. Even at “rest” the hummingbird’s heart beats up to 600 times per minute or 10 times per second!  What kind of a “rest” is that? When it is active that heart can beat twice that—i.e. 1,200 times per minute or 20 times per second!  Their hearts beat at about 10 times that of an average human.

No wonder they need such large hearts. That is why the heart of the hummingbird accounts for nearly 1/3 of the bird’s weight.

The Anna’s hummingbird which we saw often in Arizona, has a spectacular mating display which I have seen. The male dives at the females and chirps at amazing speeds. It has been thought to dive at an incredible 10 G’s, similar to the force at which jet pilots black out.

 Hummingbirds are astonishing birds. I watched a PBS show on Nature called “Super Hummingbirds.”  That is an appropriate title. It was fascinating because Hummingbirds are fascinating.

As they said on that show, “Nothing in the world is a like a hummingbird. Their abilities border on the magical. They fly with such speed they seem to alter time.”  Or how about this one, “Hummingbirds seem to spring from the imagination. They have abilities other birds don’t have. Time seems to bend for them.”

Their wings also beat at astonishing rates. The wings beat at more than 70 times per second! Even high-speed cameras blur those wings.

 The high-definition cinematography used in that in the show was also outstanding. They had some amazing shots of a hummingbird coming right into a flower. How is that possible? Obviously, they had put a tiny camera inside a flower! Humans are almost as amazing as hummingbirds!

Even though hummingbirds fly so fast it often seems like one could not be sure if one saw a hummingbird or not. They are like tiny phantoms. Yet, “Hummingbirds are made to be seen. They catch the light.  These sunlit gems evoke such wonder, we struggle to describe them.”

 These really are astonishing birds. Among the most fascinating in the endlessly fascinating world of birds. As the television show said, “hummingbirds are more than just beautiful, they are brilliant.” I could not have said it better myself

“Astounding” seems like much too mild a word.

 

Mother Nature was not cooperating

Hummingbirds

 

When I went to the English Country Garden to try my best to photograph the hummingbirds  all of my problems were exasperated by the incredible winds. If the hummingbird landed on a branch in the sun, as it did from time to time, it was only for a brief moment. And then, as often as not, the wind moved the branch a great distance and the bird somehow managed to hang on for dear light. Of course, by then, the camera lens was no longer pointed at the bird, but that darned tree again.

 

This was the most amazing race of technologies.  The Bird technology  was holding its own however. It would alight on a branch or hover in front of a flower for just the briefest moment before moving on. I was profoundly challenged to keep up. The John Neufeld technology was not working so great. I was in the real  amazing race. And most I was losing.

 

Added to that, however, the birds had one flaw which made it almost impossible to grab an image in focus.  They would constantly be chasing each other. These tiny hummingbirds are amazingly territorial. Even though there was an abundance of nectar—the nectar of the Gods, yet each bird would try to chase away each competitor. That just  showed they have evolved. Don’t let any other bird get your nectar!  Even if it means they were wasting an in incredible amount of time in which they could be fuelling up, they  were instead chasing the competition away. This was insanity.

 

This was insane.  Each bird in the garden could easily find plenty of flowers for itself. Hummingbirds are the tiniest birds in the western hemisphere.  A baby hummingbird is about as heavy as a post-it note! As soon as they can fly, they are constantly on the move.  They stop for very short and infrequent rest stops. Like this bird posing for me in the sun. Mocking me and my feeble efforts.

 

 

The Battle of Technologies: Hummingbirds and Cameras

Hummingbirds, photography

 

 

As I said, I went to the English Country Garden to meet friends and pursue hummingbirds. It was a glorious day.  The Best of Times? Pretty close. Yet, the clear blue skies provided a distinct challenge. As a result, inside the gardens the plants soaked in sunlight and spread deep shadows underneath their branches and leaves.  Photographers call this contrasty light. Cameras really can’t match the variation from bright sunlight to dark shadow very well. The camera’s light meter is challenged to pronounce what would be an appropriate lens opening to allow in just the “right” amount of light for the instant the aperture is open. And it really is an instant.

 

And as you follow a hummingbird, if you are able to do the right setting chances every second. The aperture of a camera lets in the light. It is opened and closed by the shutter. The longer the. shutter is open the more light is allowed in. The shorter time the shutter speed is opened the less light is allowed in.  In my camera, the shutter of the Nikon Z8 can be opened as little as 1/32,000 of a second. Think of that. It is an incredible short period of time. Even shorter time than a hummingbird’s wings will beat. The electronic shutter is much faster! This is incredible technology.

 

As well, the technology of my camera is designed so that one can continuously, within limits, track and keep a bird in focus!  It focuses on the eyes. The most important part of a bird to keep in focus.  But it does require the operator—me in other words—to keep the camera lens aimed at the bird while it flits in and out of the flowers in the park. This is a Herculean task. Actually, impossible. The camera can only focus on those eyes while the lens is “looking” at the bird. If it flits into the shadow or behind a flower or behind a leaf it is “lost.”  The camera will focus on the next nearest thing—like a leaf you don’t care about.

This is a battle royal between technologies. The technology of the hummingbird is astounding. The hummingbird is as described as “the most remarkable things on 2 wings” by a documentary film I watched on PBS called Magic in the Air.  The film also said they are “intriguing, enchanting and utterly captivating.” All of that is true.

Hummingbirds are so fast that they rarely provide more than a fleeting glimpse to the observer. That is a pity because there is much to see. It also made, I found out, my task of pointing my camera lens at the hummingbirds at the right time, incredibly difficult. They were there and then they were gone. I seemed to always be behind them. By the end of the afternoon, I was convinced that despite my fancy camera I would get no images at all. Just air and leaves and shadows. That is what I feared. I feared these were indeed the worst of times. And I wanted the best of times. It seemed to me an impossible task.

The camera  also had another technological trick up its  sleeve.  The camera could repeatedly lift the shutter and expose an image at astonishing speeds. Over and over again! I could set the camera to automatically fire a burst of images on merely touching the shutter button.  And it would keep firing away repeatedly at amazing speeds.  Mistakenly, I had set the camera to keep firing away at the highest level—10 to 20 frames per second. Imagine that, the camera would be set up to photograph that many images with one press of the shutter. The camera could make all the calculations of shutter speed that fast.  Over and over again. It was incredible.

Later I realized, when I looked at the images from my camera card on my computer, I had actually caught some pretty good images. At least by my lowly standards.  The camera had been faster than I. the technology of the camera was far better than the Hans Neufeld technology. It managed to capture some images of these illusive birds.

 

September 2, 2024: Mother Nature was not cooperating

 

All of these problems were exasperated by the incredible winds. If the hummingbird landed on a branch in the sun, as it did from time to time, it was only for a brief moment. And then, as often as not the wind moved the branch a great distance and the bird somehow managed to hang on for dear light. Of course, by then, the camera lens was no longer pointed at the bird, but that darned tree again.

 

This was the most amazing race of technologies.  The Bird was holding its own however. If would alight on a branch or hover in front of a flower for just the briefest moment before moving on. I was profoundly challenged to keep up. This was the real amazing race.

 

However, the birds had one flaw which made it almost impossible to grab an image in focus.  They would constantly be chasing each other. These tiny hummingbirds are amazingly territorial. Even though there was an abundance of nectar—the nectar of the Gods, yet each bird would try to chase away each competitor. That I show they have evolved. Don’t let any other bird get your nectar!  Even if it means you are wasting an in incredible amount of time in which you could be fueling up, you were instead chasing the competition away. This was insanity.

 

This was insane.  Each bird in the garden could easily find plenty of flowers for itself. Hummingbirds are the tiniest birds in the western hemisphere.  A baby hummingbird is about as heavy as a post-it note! As soon as they can fly, they are constantly on the move.  They stop for very short and infrequent rest stops. Like this bird posing for me in the sun. Mocking me and my feeble efforts.

 

[1] “Magic in the Air”, PBS

The Best of Times and the Worst of Time

Hummingbirds, photography

 

I was extremely pleased to get this photograph

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

― Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities

In some respects, I have experienced the summer from Hell. And I don’t want to stay in Hell any longer. In other respects, it has been the summer from Heaven and I want a lot more of it. Like Charles Dickens said, “They were the best of times; they were the worst of times.”

 

The troubles started at the end of 2023 when I accidentially pitched myself down the stairs in our home, and, frankly, was lucky to be alive and not paralyzed. I had literally sailed down the stairs head first until it collided abruptly with hard prejudice, against the bulkhead, leaving a big hole where my head hit. I hit the bulk head nearly 7 feet above the stair underneatb where the collision occurred. That pitched me back onto my ample derriere and slid the rest of way down. Hitting that board, I now believe saved me from more grievous injury. I lay there utterly defeated, but without broken bones or paralysis. I think I was lucky. Very lucky.

 

I did however have a torn meniscus which interfered with my enjoyment. Then I carelessly affixed my camera to its tripod on the patio of the house we were renting in San Tan Valley Arizona and it fell relegating it to the dump heap. I did have an old spare camera, but I was grumpy.

 

As a result, I was unable to do the things in Arizona that I liked the most. Except for attending Arizona State University and numerous (too numerous?) happy hour with friends. I was not able to swim the breas stroke and hiking was very difficult.

 

When we got back to Canada I was determined to buy a new camera and a better one at that. That is what I did. And it was a dandy camera.  Much too expensive for a schlep photographer like me to be honest. Then I made a bad mistake. I jammed the camera’s adapter into my best lens, which I needed to photography wild flowers and the two were stuck.  Like lovers in a loveless marriage. I wasted most of the summer to get the lens and adapter repaired. The details are a long pitiless story which I will spare my faithful readers.

 

Finally, a couple of days ago, I was back in business. I went to the English Country Garden at the Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg to try to photograph hummingbirds. The camera has some special awesome technology that makes it ideal for that purpose.

 

However, because of my malfeasance and making my fantastic camera unavailable for most of the summer, I had been unable to complete the steep learning curve to figure out how to fully use this technical marvel of a camera. I had learned the basics most of which I had sadly forgotten.  I realize, as a result, that any attempts to capture images of the extremely illusive hummingbirds at the English Country Garden.  I realized I would have to learn on the fly. And I knew this would not be easy. I feared my mental technology was not upto the photo technology.

 

I went with my friend, Sheldon Emberly and his friend, who I think is now also my friend,  Bev Giesbrecht. These people had already been photographing humming birds for 2 hours before I got there. And they got some great shots. Needless to say, I was jealous.

I feared it would be the worst of times.

 

To be continued.

 

2 delightful families

Birds, Hummingbirds

 

Recently we visited 2 wonderful families. First, was  our friends Mitch and Jan Toews at their little piece of paradise at Jessica Lake. They are always delightful hosts.

While there we were graced a second time by a family of hummingbirds. They were pretty high in a tree, but I was determined to try to get a photograph of them with my big lens. Just before we left my patience paid off as the mother hummingbird finally fed her young from the “right side.” Until then I had to be content to photograph her and her young from the back.

I knew the bird was the mother, because the fathers play no role in rearing young beyond their exuberant spurt of excitement at conception.

The nests of hummingbirds are often glued together by spider webs and then the mother, who again does all the nesting, uses pieces of lichen and small bits of bark as  very clever camouflage. They are smart birds.

These young birds we saw that day  will fledge at about 19-30 days after breaking through their eggs. Though nectar is their primary food, they also dine on tiny insects.

I could not help but think of their upcoming migration. They would be bound for South America soon. A hummingbird weighs between .1 and .3 of an ounce and yet are able to fly non-stop across the Gulf of Mexico. How is that possible? Their migrations are so astonishing that many continue to think that they hitch rides on the bodies of geese. Yet they do it; somehow they do it.

For many reasons, humans are enamoured of hummingbirds. Who could blame us? As Charles Bowden who used to write for Arizona Highways explained,

“We are all seduced by hummingbirds, by the flash of color, the sudden iridescence, the rapid movement, the hovering, and the fact that something so small will fly right up to our face. In a world where so much of the wild flees at our approach, hummingbirds seem to promise redemption, whatever the real reason for their behavior.”

According to Susan Wethington, “Hummingbirds are one of the few animals people connect with immediately, and every culture with hummingbirds has a positive connection. I think hummingbirds provide an opportunity to engage people in nature and to open our eyes to the always astonishing natural world.

Bowden was right when he said, “If you want to see the only future worth being part of, you join the world of hummingbirds.” It really does make sense to “protect the joy.”

I don’t want to be a part of a world without hummingbirds.

 

Should we discriminate against Vaccine resisters?

Epidemics/Pandemics, Hummingbirds, Social Justice

 

I like Jimmy Kimmel. He is a funny. I don’t like vaccine resisters so much. Jimmy  had a funny rant on his show the other day. Here it goes as far as I got it:

“Now that the CDC has announced that with few exceptions vaccinated Americans don’t need to wear masks indoors, and since they did that there has a been a sharp increase in fake vaccination cases. Searches for fake vaccination calls are up more than 1,100% which is gross. Lets start calling these vaccine avoiders what they are—freeloaders! The only reason you are somewhat safe now is because other people got the shot. You’re the person who  who heads for the bathroom when the check comes in the restaurant. You’re the lady who takes home the centrepiece from a wedding you weren’t invited to.  You’re the guy that brings 5 napkins to a pot luck dinner. That’s you! You don’t know it, but that’s you.”

 

I agree with Jimmy. Now people claim vaccine passports discriminate against them, when they chose not to be vaccinated with free vaccine and let others take the risks of getting vaccinated. Some businesses for example, don’t want to let people in who have not been vaccinated. Why should they?  That’s not discrimination! That’s justice! We should discriminate against them.

Each of these people who declined to get vaccinated of their own choice increased the chances of the rest of us getting covid-19. Each of these vaccine resisters increased the chances of the coronavirus mutating into more dangerous variants of the virus even to the extent that the new variants might not be hindered by the vaccines we took. Each of them increased the risks of the coronavirus being passed on to us so that we could get sick (even very sick) and perhaps die because they were possibly going around without symptoms. In other words each of these vaccine resisters endangered the lives of all of us. Frankly, if they were just risking their own lives I wouldn’t care. Each one of these resisters also increased the chances that our health system would be overwhelmed which we are now experiencing in Manitoba. At least 18 Manitoba covid patients are now in hospitals s outside the province because people took unnecessary chances, such as not taking their vaccine. All of us are now paying a heavy price for that. Covid resisters are partly responsible for this. They took reckless chances and now are paying a price. Let them pay it.

We have the right to discriminate against these people just like we have the right to discriminate against drunk cab drivers and just like we have the right to take a ride from them no matter what the colour of their skin.

I say let them suck socks.

Hummingbirds: Magnificent Flyers

Birds, Hummingbirds

 

 

This summer I have been trying to photograph more than just wild flowers. I love wild flowers, but there are other great subjects–such as birds. What could be better than hummingbirds. It is very difficult to photograph them because they are usually on the fly. They are magnificent flyers. As a photographer I sometimes wish they were not so magnificent

A few years ago I watched a PBS show called Magic in the Air, about those amazing hummingbirds. These are astounding birds, truly “the most remarkable things on 2 wings,” as the show said. They are “intriguing, enchanting and utterly captivating.”

Hummingbirds are so fast that they rarely provide more than a fleeting glimpse to the observer. That is a pity because there is much to see. Because they are so fast I was surprised to see that I captured this hummingbird in flight.

There are 350 or so species of hummingbird, but all of them are found in the western hemisphere. In the west they are found in “dazzling diversity.” The hummingbird is the smallest of all warm-blooded creatures.

The television show displayed some stunning slow motion photography, for it is only then that one can really learn to appreciate these amazing flying machines. Even if the bird finds a flower that is blowing in the wind, the bird is able to “stand still” in the air beside the flower. No other bird can hover as well as that. When they are balanced in the air they look like they are floating in the air.

Professor Doug Aufschuler, interviewed on the show called them “some of the most elite athletes of the animal world.” That is surely no exaggeration. They can fly, not just backwards, but in a figure 8 pattern. Besides flying backwards they can briefly fly upside down.

Birds of Sonoran Desert Part 1

2019 Trip to Southwest United States, Arizona, Arizona Photos, Birds, Hummingbirds

I am a flower guy, but actually enjoy birds about as much as flowers.  I find most things in nature interesting. This common bird of the Sonoran Desert has a beautiful melodic song.

 

This duck is very common and were it not for that I think the male would be more appreciated for his outstanding handsomeness.  Sort of like human I suppose.

I found this mother sitting on her eggs in my neighbour’s yard

This spectacular male was very illusive and this was the best shot I got of  him. With such beauty you would think he would want to show it off more.

 

Sometimes common names are not very helpful. He is called the ring-necked duck but it is the bill around hi s bill that is prominent. That makes it hard for a fledgling birder like me.