Catalina Spring

Whenever possible, Mike keeps his camera close by as we do our daily treks around the ranch. Only about 20 percent of the time, does he get a shot that he feels is unique enough to warrant saving and fortunately for me, he's usually content to let me push them out into the world.

A couple of days ago, Mike presented me with cropped images of a couple of hummingbirds taken on Thursday, and my reaction was to say "these are gorgeous, but why did you mask them out from the background?"

To which he responded, "I didn't mask them out"...that's as shot. And he also corrected my assumption that the pictures were of two different hummers, rather is was the same bird but posing slightly different which a created a very different affect on the neck feathers. Then, of course, I had to have the full frame shot that he cropped from...to put the shot into perspective.

So, early morning on a hilltop in the interior of Catalina Island, 200-800mm Canon in hand, with sun at his back, Pacific Ocean to the left and silhouetted against a distant hillside towards the Isthmus...a hummingbird perched upon a Lemonade Berry tree just waiting for a glamour shot.

I think you can see why I thought these were two different varieties of hummers! The colors look very different depending upon the way the light hits him.

Full Frame shot below

Then later in the day, Mike spotted a bird strolling along the drive (through the window of our living room) and, like any good photographer he grabs the camera and heads outside and got this photo!

We had to look this one up and they are Western Flickers!

Next up, Quail and Dragonflies!