The first Saturday of September is National Hummingbird Day. My wife is a proponent of taking care of these little critters. We have some year round residents at our home in Sedona, Arizona. This time of year, the sugar bill goes up as the migrators make their way using this as a stopover on their trek to winter grounds.
National Hummingbird Day
Started in 1996, this hummingbird recognition was founded by a bird lover named Penny Elliston. The idea was to raise awareness, hoping more folks would get involved and make sure the hummingbirds get fed, especially during migration times.
Feeding hummingbirds
Please be careful if you are planning to create feeding stations. The formula for the nectar needed is quite simple. One cup of white granulated sugar to four cups of water. Boil up some water and stir in the sugar. If you are getting started you might want to make the solution just bit sweeter with one cup of sugar to three cups of water. Cool it down and place in hummingbird feeder. Note that you must not use anything beside white granulated sugar! Brown sugar, honey or other sweet solutions will kill the hummingbirds. There is no need for adding any food dyes to add to the attraction. A red glass feeder works very well!
There are lots of feeders on the market and most will work fine. There are many that have yellow ‘flowers’ surrounding the feeding hole and that also seem to attract bees and wasps as well as the hummers. Since my wife moved to feeders with red portals, bees have not been a problem. Ant moats can help keep the ants form invading. This is a small moat you fill with water. If that gets breached a couple drops of cooking oil help a lot.
One last thought: Keep those feeders clean! In the heat of the summer, you can grow mold in a few days.
Photographing hummers
Despite the fact that the birds are flighty, they will also become used to human and camera gear presence pretty quickly. If you set up near a feeding station and just remain quiet and relatively still they will resume feeding. Watch for behavior. Many hummingbirds will make the exact same approach to the feeder time after time. Note where they go after having a sip or two. They often return to the same branch or perch each time. That enables you to pre-focus on a target and wait for the return trip. You can even set up some branches not too far away from the feeders to increase the possibility of a clean shot.
I find that right after the sun makes its appearance and the birds are still in morning feeding mode is a great time. You can get your shutter speed up to freeze wing movement without having to get your ISO quite so high. Photos made accompanying this article were captured with OM System Micro 4/3rds OM 1 with the 40 to 150mm f/2.8 lens at ISO 5000. A little noise reduction in Adobe Camera RAW smoothed out the little noise that was in the file without loosing any necessary detail.
By the way, if you want to attend a pretty cool Hummingbird Festival, Sedona, Arizona should be your go-to as it’s the home of the International Hummingbird Society. Dates haven’t been published for next year’s festival as yet but it’s toward the end of July. See you there!
Yours in Creative Photography,
Bob