Photo © J. Dean

A Hungry Hummingbird

A Salvia feeding frenzy

John Dean
Published in
2 min readJul 23, 2021

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I wasn’t planning on photographing hummingbirds yesterday. This season, despite planting more Salvia than last year, we’ve had fewer hummingbirds. We don’t know why, but we’ve missed them.

Yesterday afternoon, as I was reading on our porch, a particularly animated hummingbird started browsing the flowers. I assumed she would fly off in about a minute, but she kept feeding.

It was time to grab my camera. I ran inside, collected my Z7, the 50–250 mm lens (only because it was handy), and a monopod (because I assumed I did not have time to set up the tripod).

My gear collected, I returned to the porch. To my joy, the bird was still there. Did she decide to wait for me?

I moved outdoors as quietly as I could. Ordinarily, any noise or sudden movement will spook hummingbirds. I managed to position myself to take pictures, set up, and snapped away.

Here are a few of my shots:

Photo © J. Dean

The odd background in this picture is a swimming pool cover.

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John Dean
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Writing on politics, photography, nature, the environment, dogs, and, occasionally, humor. Editor of Dean’s List.