Baby Hummingbird Day 28: Scratching and Stretching

It's been four days since my last baby hummingbird update. Yesterday I went out in the backyard and parked myself for a bit hoping to see one of the babies return to the yard to feed on the flowering plants. Instead, I saw mama hummingbird return to feed one of her fledgling babies again.

It was tucked up high in our water gum tree. It was constantly doing the same things over and over again as I watched:

1. Itching and scratching. . .

2. Stretching out its tail and wings. . .

3. Sticking its tongue out. . .

4. But most of all, waiting for mama to return for another feeding.

Photographing has become more challenging for two reasons. The first is the higher up in the tree the baby is the harder it is to get details. The second, and bigger problem, is with so many branches and leaves in front of it I have to use manual focus or the camera wants to focus on everything that is closer to me than the bird. But even that is easier than it used to be. The moment I begin turning the ring on my lens to focus, the camera switches to an extreme close up view that magnifies a tiny portion of the subject matter allowing me to get the sharpest possible focus. It's a very nifty feature. It does make me a little motion sick sometimes. When that happens I'm forced to suffer for my craft :)

I also saw this yellow finch. I'm guessing it may be a female goldfinch because I have seen males in the neighborhood from time to time. Whatever it was it was a nice surprise :)