Allens Hummingbird Stickers

Early each summer this bromeliad blooms and attracts Allen's and Anna's hummingbirds. Occasionally I'm able to get a good shot like this. More available here: www.mcherderingphotography.com

I caught this immature Allen's Hummingbird on a cloudy day. I particularly like the soft lighting effects this gave the bird and the bromeliad in the background. Shot with a Pentax K-3 and SMC-DA 60-250 F4.

This Allen's Hummingbird first showed up in January of 2019, and now, in July, he's still patrolling the garden. I don't normally name the hummingbirds that visit us, but this guy has been around so long, I've decided to name him Al.

I occasionally get shots of hummingbirds looking up like this. They are usually looking around to see what other hummingbird is going to dive-bomb them next. Two things I find interesting in this shot are 1) the fact I was able to stop the wings in mid stroke. Usually they are blurred at this point in their arc, since the wings are flapping at around 50-80 strokes per second. The shutter speed for this shot was 1/1600 second. Even at that speed, I seldom stop the wings at mid stroke. The other thing I find interesting is the orange color of this female Allen's Hummingbird's gorget closely matches the color of the snapdragons in the background behind her. The fly resting on the Zinnia is kind of funny too. :-)

Very cute Allens hummingbird walking illustration

A female Allen's Hummingbird checks out a zinnia flower in the heat of an early Fall day. This shot was taken at 9:36AM on September 25, 2015. The camera registered an internal temperature of 37C (98.6F). Fortunately, this Pentax K50 shuts itself down when it gets too hot. Good camera. 2015 was a pretty toasty year.

It's difficult sometimes to determine the gender of Allen's Hummingbirds that are not adult males. Adult males have the bright red gorget and head that is unmistakable, even in flight. But one has to look closely at the gorget of the young to determine their gender. According to the Peterson's Field Guide of Hummingbirds of North America, by Sherri L. Williamson, the young male is similar to the female but the "gorget is usually more heavily marked, often with large mirrorlike metallic feathers in patches throughout the gorget area or concentrated in lower center". Hence, the red patch, just in view at the bottom of his throat, marks this as a young man.

The Black-chinned Hummingbird is a rare sight in my backyard. Most of my hummingbird shooting, and most of the hummingbird shots you see here, are from my backyard garden. In the ten plus years I've been shooting in the yard, I've only had two instances where I've caught Black-chinned Hummingbirds. Both those instances were in the springtime, but in different years, and on one day only in each year. They show up for a moment, then move on. That may be due to the territorial Allen's Hummingbirds in the garden, chasing out most other hummingbirds, for what seems like all year. This shot, as the bird approaches a Mexican Bird Of Paradise flower, was taken in Patagonia, Arizona. What I find fascinating about Black-chinned Hummingbirds...

I'll frequently get images of hummingbirds squawking at another bird in the garden, but I've never seen one with its mouth this wide open. At first glance, this female Allen's Hummingbird looks to be laughing out loud. This will put a smile on anyone's face.

When I set the camera up to take this shot, I had not considered rendering it this way. My thought was to only get a shot of a bird approaching the aloe flowers. I placed a white backdrop behind the plant to isolate the bird and aloe. It was months later that it occurred to me to render the image as a pencil sketch. I really like the way this image turned out, particularly the detail that was captured, right down to the reflection in the bird's eye and its eyelashes. Even the out-of-focus aloe stalk in the background looks good.

This image of a male Allen's Hummingbird is one of two that have been selected for inclusion in the 'Holiday Small Works' show at the Saga Fine Art gallery in Monrovia, CA, in December, 2015. It was shot using a 1980's vintage Pentax zoom lens at 180mm, f11, 1/1600 sec.

Hummingbirds are very territorial. I am frequently dive-bombed in the morning as I set up a camera for the day's work. This is a composite of four images of a female Allen's Hummingbird guarding her Zinnia. They were all taken on a calm and somewhat overcast October morning, within 50 minutes of each other, so the background and Zinnia were easily aligned. All the images were taken with a Pentax K-50 with a 1980's vintage, manual focus 70-210mm macro zoom, set to 150mm, f11, 1/1600s and ISO 3200 and 6400. This image has been submitted to the Los Angeles Center For Digital Art for their 2016 International Juried Digital Art and Photography Competition.

I normally try to shoot hummingbirds in lighting where the sun is over MY shoulder, not the hummingbird's. I try to shoot when the sun is low, so the gorget is lit. But sometimes, when the birds are stubborn, one has to shoot where the birds are. ;-) In this case, it worked. This is the female Allen's Hummingbird that has ruled our yard for most of 2015. She was frequenting this area of the yard in the early morning, but I was able to get a bit of dazzle from her gorget, and the sun back lit her wings and tail nicely. This is the second of two images accepted by Saga Fine Art, in Monrovia, California, for their 'Holiday Small Works' show in December, 2015.

They say, in photography, the light is best at the ends of the day. This early morning shot of a male Allen's Hummingbird exhibits that rule. The light was caught perfectly on his gorget and the top of his head. This was shot with a Pentax K-3 and 1980's vintage smc PENTAX-A ZOOM 1:4 70~210mm F4 lens @ 135mm, f14, 1/1000s, ISO 3200. The ol' lens still has some life in it!

This early morning shot of an Allen's Hummingbird perfectly caught the illumination on her bright red/orange gorget as she approached a pomegranate blossom.

I was surprised to see this female Allen's Hummingbird stop in mid-air to pick her, er, teeth? Nose maybe? Naw, not in public. I'm sure it was just a bug stuck in her teeth. Yeah, that's it. Shot with a Pentax K-5 and SMC-A 70-210mm, f11, 1/500s, ISO 800.

So many flowers, so little time. With pollen on her head and beak, a female Allen's Hummingbird approaches a bright yellow nasturtium flower. In my yard, the hummingbirds prefer the feeders to the flowers, it seems. It took several days of shooting to get this shot. Shot with a Pentax K-3 and SMC-A 35-105mm, f14, 1/640s, ISO 3200.

This is a rather unique image in that the gorget of this young male Allen's Hummingbird is reflecting a color range from red-orange to orange-green. This happens only when the light reflects off the gorget at just the right angle and intensity. Notice the feathers toward the back of his neck are a deep brown color. Here the angle of the light is not reflecting off the feathers. And if the light were more intense, the orange hued feathers would be lit up like light bulbs on a Christmas tree, and all detail in them would be lost. The little chunks toward the center of his gorget is just pollen from the last flower he visited.

A gorget, from the French term, gorge, meaning throat, was a piece of armor protecting the throat in the middle ages. Here it refers to the colorful feathers covering the throat of a hummingbird. In this image, of a male Allen's Hummingbird, the gorget has hues that go from yellow, to copper, to red. In bright sunlight it would be iridescent red, and white at the brightest parts, reflecting the sunlight. Here, on a cloudy day, it is easier to see the shifting hues.

It's not very often that a Skipper Butterfly photobombs one of my hummingbird photos. In this case, the female Allen's Hummingbird didn't seem to mind.

In the right light, and at the correct angle, you can capture a lot of detail in the gorget of a hummingbird. This male Allen's Hummingbird looks pretty nice in this light. It even looks as though he's smiling. It was shot in natural sunlight, no flash.

The field guide to hummingbirds in North America indicates a female Rufous Hummingbird is indistinguishable from a female Allen's Hummingbird. The description is the same, and perfectly describes the bird shown here sampling a bromeliad flower. You be the judge.

Cu is the symbol for the element Copper. Taken on an overcast day, you can see the detail, and color variations, clearly in the gorget of this male Allen's Hummingbird. On a sunny day, what is copper colored here, would be bright red. It would be so bright that most detail would be lost. This guy likes my yard. He has been hanging out for months. Usually males stop by for only a couple days. There are a lot of Allen's girls in the yard these days, so maybe it's a 'birds and bees' sort of thing.

Most of the Winter of 2019, this male Allen's Hummingbird has visited our garden. Now it's Springtime, and it's wonderful to see him woo the ladies with his acrobatic talents.

Each year, in the fall, we seem to have a male Allen's Hummingbird visit the garden on a regular basis. In late September, he is clearly molting. By late November or early December his feathers have fully rejuvenated and he's as handsome as ever. When he's bright red and white is when he seems to turn into a Santa Impersonator.

Here, Al, our resident Allen's Hummingbird, shows off his plumage to another Allen's in the garden.

Another shot of Al, in Arcadia, CA.