Late August In Southeast Arizona

    A visit to Southeast Arizona in late August meant a potential encounter with monsoon weather (i.e. bright skies one moment and dark rainy skies the next). The purpose of my visit to the Sierra Vista area of Arizona was to find and photograph any Hummingbirds and in particular, some of the rarer Hummingbirds to be found in Miller and Ramsey Canyons. Finding these Hummingbirds was not difficult because where there are Hummingbird feeders there will be Hummingbirds. And, there were plenty of feeders at Beatty's (in Miller Canyon) and at the Ramsey Canyon Inn. It was about being patient and just waiting for the Hummingbirds to come by. The photography was another matter.

Dappled light with very dark and very light areas created exposure complications. A fair amount of image post processing would be required to balance the light and dark areas of the image. And, dark rainy mornings necessitated shooting at ISOs that ranged as high as 16000. Noise reduction during post processing would be critical and at ISO 16000, would be pushing the noise reduction software to the limit. In addition, clear shots of the Hummingbirds in flight were only possible when the Hummingbirds were coming and going from the feeders. As a result, I found it almost impossible to capture an image that did not include some part of a feeder. Since my priority was to capture the Hummingbird in flight, I decided to just "go with the flow".

White-eared Hummingbird (male)

Berylline Hummingbird (female or Juvenile male)

Violet-crowned Hummingbird (male)

Blue-throated Hummingbird (juvenile female)

Rivoli's Hummingbird (female and male)

Anna's Hummingbird (female)

Black-chinned Hummingbird (male)