Sunday, May 4, 2014

Hummingbird in the Ocotillo

There's a large Ocotillo across from the Visitor's Center at Caballo Lake State Park.  I was waiting for the office to open again after lunch and was walking around looking at the flowers.  I looked up and saw this Black-chinned Hummingbird feeding from the bright red flowers.  I must have taken 100 photos and when the office door opened again for business, I could hardly straighten my neck. 






















I was standing at the base of this large Ocotillo and wanted to get a shot looking up:


Then I took another photo and noticed this tiny bird near the top:


See him on the right side, about halfway down?   I zoomed in on him and took all the photos.  Lots of tummy shots from this angle - see how his tiny feet and legs are tucked up out of sight?  Fun, fun, fun! 

I told the Volunteer in the office about all the photos I got and he said one day that bird was caught in the office when he went to lunch.  It must have come in the open door and wasn't noticed when people left.  As soon as the Volunteer came back and opened a window, the hummingbird flew out and went right to "his" tree.  I guess he guards it and keeps the other hummers away.  I wonder if he was peeking out the window watching his rivals stealing all his nectar.

That's all for today.  I haven't seen many hummingbirds lately and wanted to post the best shots I got of this Black-chinned little guy.

After posting all the cactus flowers in the last post, I remembered a large cactus on the side of my San Diego condo - it was a while before I even realized it was there.  Then one day I noticed it was blooming - I think these were the first cactus blooms I'd ever seen.  It funny that I thought this was a very large cactus - little did I know when I took these photos that I'd see many, many HUGE cactus plants in the near future.  :)


I think it's interesting that cactus plants have two different color blooms on the same "leaf."  

From me and Katie, have a great Sunday, everyone!  :)

PS - I've been getting a lot of spam e-mails from people - at this point it's pretty easy to figure out they are spam and I just delete them.  Now I'm noticing a lot of "Delivery Notification - Failure" messages in MY spam folder telling me that some messages that "I" sent didn't' make it to the recipients.  Just a reminder that these spam e-mails are in the rise, and if you get one from me that doesn't look right, please just delete it. You can e-mail me at sm92078@aol.com if you are unsure.



18 comments:

  1. It is good to be sitting and reading blogs for a bit! Your hummers are out of this world. And your condo cactus is gorgeous! I too was surprised with the different colors. We are almost home. Hopefully tonight.

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    1. Nan - glad you took a bit of a rest on your way. You've been doing a LOT of driving. Good luck and all my best thoughts go out to you both.

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  2. The delivery notifications are due to yahoo, aol and others being hacked. I would change your password if you haven't because you are sending out those msgs. We've been fighting this for over 3 months now.

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  3. Fantastic photos! Love the story about the hummer and his tree.

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  4. I've taken hundreds of pictures of those little birds too. They are fast. You certainly have some great ones!

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  5. What a great job catching those little gems. I certainly have a lot to learn about taking pictures of the wee ones!!

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  6. What beautiful pictures of magnificent creatures :-)

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  7. What a great job catching that hummer. Your pics we wonderful.

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  8. Ocotillos are a favorite and this one is incredible. Good for the hummer that he found the bush and good for us you found the hummer!

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  9. It is interesting about the differently-colored flowers on the same "leaf" of a cactus. We have a gigantic one in our front yard, and it is just starting to blossom out. My camera keeps migrating towards the front door, but I remind it that there are already hundreds of pictures of those flowers already on its memory card! Still, like me, it wants to do MORE!

    Virtual hugs,

    Judie

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  10. Fantastic pics of the Hummingbird!!! They are not easy to photograph!!! The Hummingbird is one of our very favorite birds!!!

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  11. thank you for sharing . those are tremendous shots of a difficult subject, and u captured it.

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  12. I think that the hummingbird is very glad that he doesn't have a neck that gets sore when contorting to get nectar!

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  13. I'm finally trying to catch up on blog reading. I've been trying to get some pics of the hummers here at my site with little luck, however I can identify different ones that visit the feeder.

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  14. What fun and beautiful photos of a magnificent little bird! What fun you must have had taking these!

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