What You Don’t See Is What You Get

Even on rainy days, I’ve noticed, the hummingbirds keep their appointed rounds. That was my observation from having the laptop stationed by the window that offers a view of our hummingbird feeder array. I was working. Honest!
Recently, Susan was telling me of a study by ornithologists that suggests for every hummingbird you see at your feeder, you can assume there are actually six birds in the area. Here in northeast Ohio the hummingbirds are not good at sharing. There is a constant wrangling over the food source, complete with squeaky sounds and chasing. All the birds try to take possession of the feeder. We have four feeders set up in hopes of reducing the bickering and stress in the chow line.
Photographing these bejeweled creatures is the kind of thing photographers live for. The birds are elusive, to say the least. They come and go in a blur and buzzing of wings. They, tantalizingly, hover over the feeder until you raise the camera. Then, zip! They’re gone. You scratch your head and say, “If I do this or that …” You shoot 100 frames and there might be one keeper shot in the batch. You shoot 200 frames and you get one that makes you happy.
Ghostly images. You ask yourself unanswerable questions about what you might have seen. Or, didn’t see. Photographing hummingbirds is different from making images of other birds. You don’t know what you have until you see the image on the screen. And, even then, you can’t be sure.
Tomorrow, if it’s not raining, I’ll go for 300 frames and see what the birds deliver.