BASICS


BASICS: "Hummingbirds.....where is the person, I ask, who, on observing this glittering fragment of the rainbow, would not pause, admire, and turn his mind with reverence..." (J. J. Audubon).
This is a blog about my summer life at the Baiting Hollow Hummingbird Sanctuary, at my winter garden, Calypso, in the Bahamas, and aspects of life in general.
This private sanctuary is now permanently closed to the general public, as a result of a lawsuit brought by a neighbor. Only my friends and personal guests may visit (paul.adams%stonybrook.edu).

Sunday, June 1, 2014

new vids: flash of red, mating dance

Here are a couple of videos taken today. The first shows the male very close up, and you can see a brief hint of red on his gorget. He's perching quite a lot in a quite favorable location, on a fairly low twig near some convenient seating. Underneath the twig is a feeder he is guarding and using (one of many!).  Of course pose, lighting and focus are still not quite ideal. At the end of the clip he flies off and I pan down to show the feeder



The second video shows a new mating dance. He's moving extremely fast, in a repeated downward arc just to the upper left of the boxed cedar tree. He really looks like a rocketing dot. One can just see him coming in very low very close to the base of the cedar, dipping below some bushes where the female is undoubtedly located. This occurs in a favorite location for mating dances, close to the bluff drop-off. He's moving so fast you really have to look frame by frame, which I can do on the original.

I'll say more about the new camera I'm using for these videos in my next post.



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3 comments:

  1. IcemanJune 2, 2014 at 4:03 PM

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  2. IcemanJune 2, 2014 at 4:08 PM

    Both videos are absolutely amazing - especially the first one - amazing close up. I have some in my yard in Huntington but they only appear sporadically at this point, but even that 2 second "flash" is something I'm very thankful for!

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  3. Paul AdamsJune 2, 2014 at 8:56 PM

    Thanks for your comment. Both videos were shot with a Canon Vixia G30 camcorder. It has a 20 times zoom and in addition I used 2X digital zoom for the first clip. Handheld, about12 feet away from the hummer. When you manually focus (an absolute necessity) it applies a further 2X zoom, which help in getting the focus exactly right. Most of the visits by the male and female are sporadic here too - perfectly normal at this time of year. By the time you switch the camera on, let alone frame and focus, they are gone again. But sometimes the male perches on a visible twig. All I need now is good natural light and for the angle to be good. I did get a clip of the flash of red, glowing like a stop light, but unfortunately I accidentally deleted it!

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