Immature male Ruby-throated Hummingbird
It took me over an hour this evening to get this particular image I had in mind, a shot from the front side of one of our Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. Getting a sharp image from the side is a lot more predictable when they hover at a hummingbird feeder. I’m sitting only about ten feet away from the feeder, barely just above the minimum focus distance at 2.6 m of the SIGMA 150-600 S lens. The depth of focus is very shallow, just about 5 mm with the lens wide open at f/6.3. The hummingbirds are so darn fast and even if they hover for a second, the lens does not always obtain a sharp focus fast enough.
The stress level of our hummers has increased lately. We have probably about a dozen of them around here. Not that they only battle vigorously among each other for the best feeder, because we all know they like to “own” a feeder with this delicious sugar solution in it. No, here in our front yard they also have to fight off at least four different species of wasps that also like the sweet content of a hummingbird feeder. I can tell, the hummingbirds have a certain respect for the wasps. The young immature male in the photo above uses this little branch, I mounted just above one of the feeders, as his “guarding perch”. While the competition mostly buzzes above him and his eyes follow every move, he just got distracted by a larger wasp below him when the click was made. Unfortunately I didn’t have the wasp in my shot but the gesture of the tiny bird is priceless.