Late yesterday afternoon, until the sun went down, a pair of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds were buzzing up a storm as they were defending their territory from other hummingbirds. Of the pair, the male was by far the most active. They were flying around like tiny jet fighters, and in between “dog fights,” the male frequently landed in a nearby tree to watch over their territory.
I could not just watch them without breaking out and setting up my Nikon D800 and 600mm lens with a 1.4 teleconverter (850mm). My presence with my camera did not slow them down, which would have helped as I attempted to photograph them. They continued to buzz back and forth.
I was not trying to photograph them as they flew by me. They were moving to fast and erratically. Instead, I focused on a few locations in the nearby trees where they would periodically land, rest and monitor their territory.
After chasing away other hummingbirds, the female disappeared deep into the trees, and the male returned to a few favorite perches on the outside edges of the trees. That is where and how I was able to get the images in this article.
In the above image, I was able to photograph the male hummingbird with his tongue extended out of his beak. It is that long tongue that enables them to get nectar deep from within long narrow flowers.
In the above image, the male hummingbird was stretching up, looking around for an intruder, while being nicely lit by the warm glow of the setting sun.
I was very pleased with the detail captured in these images by my Nikon D800. If you did not click on the images to see them in more detail, I recommend you do. These images are low resolution for my blog. Higher resolution images and other hummingbird images can be see on my website at: http://stabone.com/p700411659