HB & Prey with Repost

Gallery: AvianPosted July 28, 2016178 views11 comments

I always knew that part of a hummingbird's diet was insects, but I'd never actually seen evidence of it until a week ago. I had staked out a Hawthorn tree in hopes of Cedar Waxwings (no shows), but this hummingbird landed in it for a short while popped up, snagged an insect and perched with it again. I have a somewhat blurry image of the grab that I'll post as a comment, but the perched image came out fairly nicely, I think.

7DII, Sigma 150-600 mm C @ 600mm, handheld, f/8, 1/1600, iso 500, aperture priority, pattern metering, -1/3 EV. Processed in LR5 & CS6. Cropped to 5.73 MP before resizing for the web. the tight crop was to help eliminate a bunch of distracting oof foliage and to make the insect more visible. Unfortunately, my PS skills aren't up to eliminating the one leaf that crosses onto the bird's body. I tried and it was a mess cheeky

. Taken July 21st at 7:30 AM.

Comments and criticisms are always appreciated.

Thanks,

Comments

11 comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on July 28, 2016 at 6:44 PM

Here's the flight shot where the hummingbird grabbed the insect. All I did to this was noise reduction and cropping.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Jim DeWitt on July 28, 2016 at 7:51 PM

Nice behavioral capture, Dennis. It's fun watching them hawk bugs, isn't it? The bugs don't stand a chance. The OOF leaf is a problem; removing it would be beyond my PS skills, too. The partial flash on the wing and neck is pretty cool, too.

Registered on August 28, 2006, 1240 Posts, 8506 Comments

Comment posted by Floyd Hopper on July 28, 2016 at 7:54 PM

Clone out the out of focus leaf and you have a great image.

Registered on May 1, 2009, 652 Posts, 762 Comments

Comment posted by Keith Bauer on July 28, 2016 at 8:13 PM

A pretty cool capture with the insect. Agree that the OOF leaf isn't ideal, but clearly nothing you could have done in camera. Here's a fairly quick version with the leaf removed.

Registered on November 20, 2003, 458 Posts, 4836 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on July 28, 2016 at 9:14 PM

Thanks, Keith. I was having particular problems making the wing feathers work. Your cloning looks much better than the half finished version that I gave up on.

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by Matt Shellenberg on July 28, 2016 at 9:18 PM

Do not get to see a Hummingbird with Prey shot very often, Dennis. Even for a Hummingbird, it would take alot of those little bugs to sustain him. You sure captured the detail. That sigma lens is pretty impressive.

Registered on February 6, 2008, 168 Posts, 3118 Comments

Comment posted by Jim Zablotny on July 28, 2016 at 9:45 PM

Hi Dennis,

Pretty cool shot. I'm not sure about the prey, but there are lots of bug options out there that would easily fit in a hummingbird's bill. I like Keith's rework to remove the OOF leaf. I like the touch of color on the shoulder and base of the tail........................Jim

Registered on January 17, 2004, 705 Posts, 3594 Comments

Comment posted by Allen Brooks on July 29, 2016 at 11:35 AM

Excellent detail and neat capture with the bug. Keith's PS work does improve the image.

Registered on July 27, 2011, 262 Posts, 2597 Comments

Comment posted by SandyRichardsBrown on July 29, 2016 at 6:32 PM

Great catch - have never seen a hummer with protein!
Too bad that leaf is in the way - you might try a tight crop of the head/shoulders since the prey is so unusual.
Sandy

Registered on November 24, 2003, 3937 Posts, 12909 Comments

Comment posted by Dennis Plank on July 29, 2016 at 7:26 PM

I took another try at the clone job on the leaf. I'm still not super happy about it, but at web scale it doesn't seem to look too bad.

crying

Registered on January 28, 2008, 1767 Posts, 23192 Comments

Comment posted by David Schoen on July 29, 2016 at 7:50 PM

I've heard of this but never seen it until now. I worry that hummingbirds and other birds grow dependent upon feeders and don't look for natural foods in their natural surroundings. I think I'm pretty impressed that you were able to catch one grabbing a bug whether it's in focus or not.

Registered on November 6, 2006, 1213 Posts, 4587 Comments