I got out my HD camcorder last week and attempted to shoot some better video of the Hummers at the same time as I was shooting some still photos. I had some limited success and learned a little in the process. This video footage is an example of the intensity of the territorial fighting that even the females do when it comes to a food source. But there reaches a point when a little exhaustion and hunger forces a truce. Even if it’s only for a few moments.
Archive for September, 2009
A Moment of Truce
Monday, September 21st, 2009Hummingbird Photos
Monday, September 21st, 2009As the migration of the hummingbirds continues through North Texas we had five or six hummers at our number one feeder most of last week. I think the rainy overcast weather kept them here longer then normal. It gave me an opportunity that I don’t get very often to try taking more photographs of them. I’ve got a D70 Nikon DSLR and a 70-300mm telephoto lens that I’ve used in the past to take pictures of hummingbirds. I’ve not gotten the quality of photos that I though myself capable of getting in the past. With a combination of ideas including taping over all but one of the feeder holes, forcing the hummers to feed where the light would be best and I having my camera pre-focused at that spot to minimize my reaction time to getting a shot. I set up the tripod and camera about 4 feet away from the feeder to let them get used to seeing it by the feeder. Then I stood behind the tripod for a while, again for them to get comfortable with seeing the camera and me. Last week it was partly cloudy ever day and so I spend a lot of time waiting for the right time where I had enough light to get a good shutter speed necessary to get good stop action photos of the wings. I also needed the light to better reflect the iridescence colors of the hummers. After standing for hours and hours, two days turned out very productive and I got some good photos. The only disappointment was the lack of any male Ruby Throated hummingbirds. Of the half dozen hummers that worked the feeder only one was a male and he rarely showed up during the day and when he did it was early morning or just before dusk. So I didn’t get any photos of him. In fact the only shots I got of a male was about 10 seconds on the video I posted earlier.
Below is a gallery of the results of last week’s shooting.
Hummingbird Injured?
Monday, September 21st, 2009The other evening Jan was out on the patio reading and watching the hummers, we’ve gone from two to at least four with the migration in full swing. I even installed a second feeder to cut down on the fighting at the first feeder. We can’t see the other feeder from the patio and so we can’t tell if they are using it very much. They continue to fight over the first one. Shortly after Jan had been out she came back in and told me to go out to the patio, that one of the hummers seemed injured. One of the females had been to the feeder and drank, then it flew towards the patio, went up to one of the patio windows, hovered and then just dropped to the floor! I went out and sure enough she was laying on the patio. She hadn’t flown into the window and I’m sure that she didn’t see her own reflection because of the solar screen on the window. I picked her up and she protested, so I knew she was still alive. I put her in the palm of my hand and she just lay there. I didn’t have a clue what to do with her so I just held her and cupped my other hand over her to keep her warm. I watched her and she watched me. After about 15 or 20 minutes I had Jan get some sugar water in a little shot glass and a swizzle stick. We tried to give her some sugar water as a droplet on the swizzle stick by touching the end of her beak but she didn’t act interested. None of which sounded good. A normal healthy bird wouldn’t have just stayed in my hand. But then I just removed my hand completely and she just decided to fly away. I guess we’ll never now what her problem was. This was one of those times in which I didn’t bother to get the camera out of my pocket. I guess I was more concerned about her then getting a picture. I can now say that I’ve held a hummingbird in my hand!
Ruby Throated Hummingbird Video
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
Get the Flash Player to see this content.
I’ve recently converted this web site to the WordPress application and as I work with it I add plug-ins. The latest plug-in is the Flash Player. This a test of the player plug-in with a piece of video footage of my Ruby Throated Hummingbirds. The documentation for the plug-in wasn’t clear on which codex of MP4 it supports and so I’ve had to create some test files of the various codex and see which one works. I found that “H264″ was the only codex that I use that worked.
As for the video itself, I’ve had a hummingbird feeder out all summer but no visitors until August. Apparently after the females have raised their young they start roaming for better resources. First I had one and then a couple weeks later another female showed up and the battles began. Now I have three females and occasionally one male shows up to feed. The three females are constantly battling over the feeder and so yesterday I bought a second feeder and put it around the corner of the house, out of sight of the first feeder so that the alpha female couldn’t see and attempt to control both of the feeders.
We’ve been having rain for the last 3 or 4 days and yesterday afternoon the sun finally came out and so I set up the camera to try and get some better video of the hummingbirds. Specially the male, which doesn’t show up very often. Finally got some good video of the alpha female and a very short piece with the male.
I take the video from the camera, it comes out in the motion jpeg or mjpeg format and convert it to an avi file and then run it through the Handbrake software to convert it to mp4 H.264 format. Sometimes Handbrake doesn’t like the avi file that I create from the mjpeg file and I have do it over. Not sure what Handbrake’s problem is. I think I’m using a down level version, so the next step is to get Handbrake current.
The good news is that web sites like Facebook and Vimeo will take the mjpeg format directly. So to upload to them just requires creating the avi file.
Just to see the difference, I’ve embedded a link to a Facebook version of the same video
And a link to my Vimeo.com version.
Well actually, it looks like the Vimeo video is the best quality. It may be a result of Vimeo converting directly from the large avi file and the WordPress Flash plug-in is working from the re-coded mp4 file. Anyway this was a good first test of my options for streaming video from my site.
“Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking”
Friday, September 11th, 2009
1974 Vinage Timex digital LCD watch
That was the Timex Watch company’s famous slogan from years back and I’ve got a watch to prove it. Or more accurately, my wife has a watch to prove it. I bought this watch a year or some after we’d gotten married at Buchman Jewelery in Clay Center Kansas where my dad worked as their Watchmaker for at least 35 years. This watch is a 1974 era second generation digital, one of the first to use a LCD display instead of the red LED displays of the very first digital watches. I don’t remember what kind of band came with it originally but my wife didn’t like the band and so we had a Speidel “Twist-o-Flex” band put on at the time we bought it. This watch uses the old silver oxide watch battery. I think the original Timex battery was the “K” battery. Fortunately the “392″ battery is still available and the generic replacement for a lot of different manufacturers original silver oxide watch batteries. They only last about 12 to 18 months in the watch and so I’ve changed batteries and reset the time quite a few times in 35 years. She’s worn it every day for 35 years! How many watches have you gone through in 35 years. I can’t get her a new watch because there aren’t any nice looking digital display watches out there for women and she doesn’t like analog dial watches. The only ladies digital display watches available today are clunky looking plastic sport watches. So she continues to wear the Timex. I guess it’s a tribute to both Timex and to Spiedel for making good products 35 years ago!