Rufous Hummingbird

[Don Nelson]

Likely juvenile Male from coloration , but may be female with partial gorget. (most females more white and only tiny colored feathers where the gorget is).
One of many poses/birds from two of my flash setups.
I took Artie and Doug to this location last weekend -- several male Rufous were still around then as well as many females, and lots of male/female Annas.
By this weekend, the breeding Rufous males were all gone - they head south once breeding is complete. Females stay to brood and raise the young. Next year for breeding male rufous unless I get lucky!
Canon 5D3, 400DO, 25mm extension tube, f18, 1/200 sec, 8 flash 580EXII at 1/32 power.
Hope you like it.

[Colin Knight]

Love the bird! Great pose, detail. What's up with the background? Looks very unnatural and a big negative IMO.

[Jeroen Stel]

Excellent flight shot and the BG could be natural or not but looks fine with me.
Well done getting this fast bird in flight like this!

greetings,

Jeroen Stel

[dankearl]

I think the BG looks fine and the pose is perfect.
Very nice to get this view of the tail fanned out.
I would maybe take a bit off the right side.

[Humberto Ramos]

I love the pose and the birds color, I agree that a BG with colors more vivid would be even better.

[arash_hazeghi]

lovely Don! I like the very dynamic pose sharp details and BG. I would warm and saturate the image a bit

[Doug Brown]

Hey Don. Which Doug are you referring to? I would have liked to have joined you, but I was in Vegas! Love the pose! Lighting is even, maybe to a fault. I like a little more shadowing in my multiple flash setups; I use a total of 4 flashes for hummingbirds. The smaller number of flashes allows you to give the light a little more directionality.

[Don Nelson]

Doug
Another Doug -- see Artie's Birds as Art Blog -- May 14.
The flash setup is dialed in for differnet amounts of light depending on direction. This setup was for ~45 degree facting right, but this bird is full-on frontal. 2 flash on the background leaves 6 on the bird. two of them are dialed down a stop.
Did you do any HB flash while in Az?


Arash
You are correct- this could be easily saturated a bit more. Good suggestion. I'll repost later.

[Doug Brown]

Did you do any HB flash while in Az?

No. The hummingbird numbers were terrible!

[Don Nelson]

Drought and fires wouldn't have helped HB reproduction in past 2 years. I recall Joe McDonald reported poor numbers last year and several of the B&B owners have posted low numbers earlier this spring. So not surprising.

Also, many reports of normal AZ birds outside normal areas. Broad Billed HB east of the Mississippi in midwest. Not just confined to HB group -- we had male Vermillion Flycatcher here last spring, and had a female Vermillion overwinter in a local refuge. Both are way out of range (nearest should be just east of Los Angeles for irregular visiton with edge of Az-Ca border being normal range according to iBird map)

[Cheryl Arena Molennor]

Love the pose and detail on the hummer. BG is clean and soft so it works for me.

[J van Noordwyk]

Verry good detail, lovely pose and a nice cleen bg I like it.