At the risk of being boring, I’m going to try to demonstrate a little advice on birding photography. As I’ve mentioned in many previous blogs, we have a watercourse set up in our yard to attract birds. (Water will attract more species of birds than food will.) To attract birds to the watercourse, and also assist with my photography, I have set up what I might refer to as “staging objects”… sticks, rocks and bushes that ease birds’ transition to the watercourse from the ground and surrounding trees. These staging objects, meant to mimic a natural environment, are not only attractive perching places for the birds but they also give me multiple opportunities to photograph the same bird “in different environments” in that the backgrounds/settings/postures change even if the bird doesn’t.

I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that I usually retain about 60% of the photographs I take (for many different reasons which I won’t go into here). I suspect that most photographers would probably only retain a few of the better photographs and dump the rest. But I’m going to try to illustrate my dilemma, caused in some part by my successful sculpting of the environment.

Here is where the boring aspect of this post rears its head. ALL of the following photographs, save the hummingbirds at the bottom, were taken of the same bird’s single trip to the water feature. (For the record, the bird is a Black-capped chickadee.) You can probably find a favorite among the photos, but how easily would you be able to discard ANY of the others?

This female Anna’s hummingbird may choose to spend the winter with us.

And finally (regular readers may remember there is always a “finally”), here’s a Rufous hummingbird feeding on salvia in the yard adjacent to the watercourse. I think the bird is a female but I can’t rule out that it might be a first year male. (Such is the state of my birding skills!) This bird has a long journey ahead, and it’s time to get moving!