Rufous Portrait

Hi again, Everyone! This is picture I took of a male rufous hummingbird when I was on a father-son trip with my dad in BC this spring. I wanted to go to the George C. Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary in Delta, BC and photograph, and I was HOPING we would see some hummingbirds! We did! It was pretty cold and rainy out, but that didn't stop a few Rufous and one Anna's hummingbirds from visiting a couple of the feeders they had set up. They are so fast! I was happy to catch this little guy when he was striking a pose on the edge of the feeder right in front of me.

I liked photographing these guys so much I asked my dad if we could drive all the way back out there the next day, too! I think I'm addicted to photographing hummingbirds now!

We have a Calliope hummingbird visiting our garden at home this month, but he appears and disappears before I can get my camera every time.

Thank you for looking!

Nikon D300
Nikkor AF-S 300mm f/4 IF-ED
ISO 640
1/1000 @ f/5
mounted on Feisol Elite 3372 Tripod

Dad's processing notes:
Converted from RAW using Phase One Capture One Pro 7
SLIGHT tweak to tones and contrast in Nik Viveza 2 in PS5
Cloned out section of feeder base in LRC
Two passes of Nik Dfine 2.0
MAJOR crop (this is approximately 10% of original image...I was kind of shocked this (mostly) worked from a D300, but Josiah wanted to try for a portrait look and this is the result! Including more of the breast/stomach meant removing more and more of the feeder so we decided to compromise and landed here.)

NOTE: the hummingbirds are free to come and go at will from the Reifel sanctuary, but this bird is obviously accustomed to frequenting a feeder while he hangs out on the BC coast.