I was out walking with my camera yesterday and woohoo!!! I saw a wee hummingbird zip across my path so I stopped and looked and looked and ah-huh! found it perched in some brambles. Unlike my previous post about a hummingbird, yesterday was sunny (better light to see their iridescence), I had my DSLR this time and a zoom lens on it and I could get much closer to it.
Result! Here are four photos - I took about 50! lol. I've uploaded the original sized photos - so do click on them to enlarge them. The detail is great.
Today while out on a leisurely stroll, I heard that sound. That low and lovely vibration of a hummingbird. I see and hear them a lot but it's often fleeting, more like, 'ooo, there goes a hummingbird!'
However, today I got a very nice treat! This hummingbird buzzed overhead and landed in the brambles right beside me. I stopped and watched... lovely. A 'Anna's Hummingbird' and a very tame one! And! I had my camera! I sloooowly get my camera out of my pocket thinking the birdie will shoot off at any moment. But nope, the birdie was still there, so I took a piccie.
Then, I hedged my bets and flicked the switch to 'video'... and OMG! The birdie is still there! So I filmed this:
I get sore arms holding my camera at a weird angle and so stop the David Attenborough impression. I say thanks to the birdie and walk on. As I do, I tell a couple walking towards, that there's a hummingbird there. They stop and watch it... cos it's still there!
Then I wait some more and see that they've told another couple... it's still there!
Aww. It's lovely to see the pleasure of a wee, teeny, widdle bird can bring.
I wish the pics and video could have captured the hummingbird better. Especially the red iridescent throat and forehead. Alas, it's an old cheap point and shoot that I had... it has it's limits, as do I! But here's a wonderful video another local got out his kitchen window of the same species building a nest over ten days last spring. It's gorgeous.
When I lived in Britain, I was so surprised to learn that there were no hummingbirds there. I shall pack and release some when I next visit. ;-)
A while back, while walking along the water, I saw the otter that I usually see. Then I saw him again and again and again - popping up here and then there and then back over there. WTF?! It wasn't the otter... it was him, his beloved and their sprogs! I was seeing a family of otters; six of the wee weasels!
There's been an otter living here for a few years but this is the first year I've seen a whole family. Sweet, eh?
Sorry about the crap photos. Not the right camera for the job. Here's a crap video of them (same crap camera!). The otters are on the big rocks:
It was a glorious day again today! This has been a wonderful winter; lots of varied weather from freezing, snowy days to wind storms to 15C sunny, spring weather. All very different from the usual winter grey damp dullness. I went to Esquimalt Lagoon and the Breakwater today to soak it all up, camera in hand... and the wildlife cooperated!
A hummingbird when the light is not quite right.
"Hey! Are you taking my piccie?"
The colour in those feathers is amazing.
Iridescence, full on! Lovely wee bird.
