Female Ruby-throated Hummingbird

I took a couple dozen exposures of this female ruby-throated hummingbird at the feeder a few minutes ago. One can tell it’s a female by the lack of a ruby patch on the throat.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Well, it seems I’ve gone and done it again… I have a seriously backlogged “pile” of bird photos to share with you. Maybe I’ll finally make some time this weekend to write about some of my bird encounters from the last couple of months. For now, I thought I would share a photo from this evening.

I noticed a rather confused Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) hovering near my sun room window two days ago—confused because there were several new feeders hanging around the yard, none of which was a nectar feeder! Feeding the hummingbirds last summer inspired me to get into bird feeding in general, so I was really glad to see some return already. Yesterday afternoon I found where I had stored the feeders last fall; cleaned them up; prepared some nectar (1 cup sugar mixed with 4 cups boiling water); let the concoction cool for a while (the freezer helped); and then traded out the finch feeder for the nectar feeder.

By the time I got home from work this afternoon, there were two male and one female hummingbirds buzzing happily around the yard. I wanted to get an exposure that would freeze one in flight, so I opted for the ISO 1600 setting. I normally would not use such a high setting on such a sunny day, but a slower speed would not have captured what I wanted as well. Luckily the photo isn’t too grainy.

I leave you with some trivia: ruby-throated hummingbirds are the only hummingbirds that visit us in the Northeast; can beat their wings 60 to 200 times per second; and consume about half their weight in sugar each day. Males have (surprise, surprise) a ruby throat, but females do not.