The Wow Factor

There were two main questions yesterday, were trees still standing and did the hurricane winds disrupt the flow of migrating birds. There are trees down and lots of branches snapped off, but the birds are everywhere. One just has to be careful walking around because of the fallen branches and round seed pods underfoot. The day didn't start out promising. The nature walk in Wagner Cove is swamped, but not too swamped for a rat to get around. Where are hawks when they're needed!


There were lots of birds. I did see one kinglet, one black-throated blue warbler (male), on blue winged warbler, too fast for the camera. I'll post a variety of birds after today.

This was the wow factor. I was trying to track the blue wing warbler when this charmer buzzed my head. I froze. The hummer was in my face. There is a God!

There is nothing easy about photographing hummers. Think zipping Tinker Bell. All I could get for a while were pictures of the charmer at rest. It was a game of see me? Now you don't.

This charmer was doing a game, a traffic light hummer? Black/ orange.

If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I would not have believed it. It was the male ruby throated hummingbird. Usually we only see the females. I had to check the bird book at home to sort this out. Black throat, changeable.

I could be posting 100 pictures, black throat/ orange throat. Neat trick if you can do it.

What I really wanted were flight pictures. I tried manual focus, auto focus, back to manual focus. Wish I had an x-ray lens. Finally it was possible to get a few shots.

I left the park after 4pm. I know there will be more hummers in the days to come, but I don't expect to see more male hummers. This was the "wow" for the day.

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