Proof Positive of Hummingbirds

Since this spring I've been regularly cleaning and refilling feeders, and occasionally excitedly reporting glimpses of hummingbirds, and now the season is running out.  It is mid-August, and soon the hummers will begin their migration south.  So with a now or never, this evening, I sat in wait with the 400mm f/5.6.  (Well, maybe it was because I really had other things to do, but was procrastinating.)

Here's the uncropped first proof:




All the rest will be very cropped. As you will see, this 400mm f/5.6 is not quite adequate.


This next is the only one I have showing two birds and the only one with a male (identified by the bright red throat). Why is it blurred? Because I'm within the minimum focus distance of the lens.


Just a few inches more distant, this other bird (a female cardinal) springs into focus.


So I retreated some, and got the following (all heavily cropped). They may look good on the screen, but at full resolution, these are not keepers. But since these are my first hummingbird shots, here they are.  The best shot I've seen this season was from a colleague who put a 100mm macro on a tripod with a remote trigger. I'll try that sometime.  All the following were shot shutter priority, 1/400 seconds shutter speed, manually increasing the ISO as the sun went down.

PS: coming to think of it, this fellow below may be male - the throat is dark, not white.



All these rest are female.