r/hummingbirds • u/9VoltGorilla • 2h ago
Hummingbirds are entirely the reason I got a camera. I took these photos 6 days after getting my first one, and somehow they’re still some of my favorites. Figured I’d finally share the full set.
To me, these photos speak to a pretty deep part of my approach to being a birding and hummingbird enthusiast.
We all love going out into the field, hearing unfamiliar calls, spotting something unexpected and getting those chance-encounter photos. But there’s also something incredibly intimate about having such a magnificent little creature trust your presence while it sits six inches from your face on the other side of a kitchen window.
There’s an exchange that happens when you care enough to provide a little nutrition and, in return, get these almost ethereal experiences. Catching your first flash of an iridescent gorget. Freezing wing motion for the first time. Having a hummingbird buzz inches past your head while you’re changing a feeder. Eventually, all of those moments start to feel less like isolated encounters and more like a relationship.
You’re not their shepherd or their caregiver. At best, you’re a caloric subsidizer. 😂 But you still get the privilege of being a very close observer of something wild.
That’s what these photos represent to me. The childlike wonder I still feel taking pictures of hummingbirds. Because at its absolute simplest, keeping feeders is just putting sugar water outside for tiny winged things with long beaks.
And somehow, even reduced to that, it is still completely magical.
