Quiet here on the hill

My 3-day weekend has been quite the quiet one so far, although Friday morning I was happily surprised with a visit from my sister, Char, who brought along her daughter and grand-daughter. Photos to come later ~

Speaking of quiet, I was weeding out on the patio yesterday and thinking that it was such a shame that the hummingbirds haven’t been coming around much this year. I figured it was due to the fact that my husband’s aloe plants didn’t bloom this year. I have tried to keep them alive and thriving like he did, but after transplanting some of them early this spring, they didn’t do so well and are only just coming back healthy and strong. As soon as I had the thought about the aloe plants, I heard the distinctive thrum of a tiny hummingbird.

So I stopped weeding immediately, went inside and washed my hands, and came back outside with the camera to wait.

 

And was rewarded with this.

As far as I’m concerned, it was pure luck. I shot it on the auto dial (sport mode) of my Nikon D7000. I then edited it in Photoshop CS5 using my favorite new actions {freebies!} from Little Lusker and finished it off with {this} texture from Shadowhouse Creations.

I uploaded it to FB and hours later, was shocked to find more comments than ever from people telling me how much they loved it. So I uploaded it to my etsy sale site. Not that I hope to make any money from it . . . I just hadn’t been to my etsy site in a while and was glad I went. Only two of my photos were currently for sale. Ha!

Female Rufous Hummingbird on Etsy

 

Here is another view, with her little red throat spot.

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This morning, I woke to a gray day and took my camera and my coffee outside on the patio and caught several other hummingbird photos after filling the little feeder.

I love this stuff.

I’m so terribly exciting, aren’t I?

 

I bought {this sweet feeder} from Duncraft last year on an end-of-season sale. They have it available in red, clear, and blue as well.

It’s sometimes nice to have a pretty prop when you’re taking bird photos.

These are kind of cool, too:

Mini Blossom Stake Feeder

 

And then, the male Rufous Hummingbird showed up.

 

Hummingbirds move really fast so I was glad to get some photos of them at rest.

 

All in all – quite a rewarding weekend, photographically speaking.

 

Although I think George is kind of bored with the sitting around . . .