Sunbirds are a difficult subject to photograph! Why - do you wonder?
Fly for me - bird of the Sun : Wilbur smith
Oh damn - fly they do! They flit around so fast. Restless - hopping from bush to bush in search of nectars and insects..
They have dazzling colors - almost reflective and look shiny.. Just look at this Loten's sunbird
Sparkling beauty
Aren't the colors and the shine just awesome? However, this same awesome shine on the feathers makes these very desirable subjects, a nightmare to capture correctly on camera.
I find sunbirds difficult to capture because of the following issues:
- Speed - they are very restless birds and constantly move. Even while sucking nectar from the flowers, they re-position or move their head constantly
- Shine - Due to the shiny feathers, even a bit of sunlight directly on the bird over exposes feathers and burns out
- Though constantly seen near habitat, getting them in a pose requires patience and constant tracking
However, with persistence, I have been able to capture the pics. For example, for the picture above, I had to travel to a place where the Loten's sunbirds seemed to favor a particular area due to the Lion's ear flowers that were blooming. I then had to focus and wait for the bird to come to a particular flower where sun was neither opposing nor directly shining on the bird. Then I had to experiment with my exposure to get the bird exposed just right...
Took 3 hours of travel and 1-2 hours of waiting, clicking and trying again before I could get the shot above.
Purple rumped sunbird are another variety of sunbirds that I got some nice close ups and interesting shots of..
This bird for example, was so close that I could not even focus without stepping back a couple of step. It was busy inspecting a flower and I got this wonderful closeup..
Close up!
It is easier to capture a photo with feather details and non-blown out details if it rains or if it is cloudy. So, I got this nice picture but the beautiful bird has a 'wet dog' look!
The 'wet-dog' look after rains!
Sunbirds are quite the acrobats and often hang on branches upside down while looking under leaves for their favorite snack - the spider! Usually, the bird gets obscured by other leaves as it forages under some leaf but in this case I was lucky to get it on a tree branch with small leaves.
The acrobat!!
I was lucky to get to watch a hunt and capture of a spider too by the same sunbird (the acrobat) later in the day. Here he is, with a snack(a spider)
Snack attack
I hope you enjoyed the pictures of sunbirds and their activities...
Please comment freely and let me know your opinion. I will try to bring many different types of wildlife photos/macro/Astro posts to the community. Feedback and comments are welcome,. I am still learning many techniques and always value feedback from experts in this community.
Have a nice day everyone. Cheers!
