Magnificent Hummingbird on Sky Island
by Gregory Scott
Title
Magnificent Hummingbird on Sky Island
Artist
Gregory Scott
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
This is an environmental photograph showing the habitat of the Magnificent Hummingbird. It's found in Mexico and in the US in southern Arizona. This shot was taken at Sunny Flats Campground at Cave Creek in the Coronado National Forest, near Portal Arizona, where it is quite common. This is a desert "Sky Island" environment, where snow and rain common due the the mile high elevation in the small mountain ranges in the area. Thus you have Sycamore along streams that may be somewhat subterranean or seasonal in nature, Oaks, Alligator Juniper, and other vegetation not normally found in the lower deserts.
The magnificent hummingbird is a year-round resident in these areas, though the populations may die back substantially in years with an extended hard freeze.
This photo is taken using a simultaneous double exposure using sunlight and light from high speed flash. The bird is illuminated with the high speed flash to stop action and provide high detail, while this is also balanced somewhat with the ambient sunlight, which illuminates the background, although the background was about 2 f-stops underexposed to avoid ghosting of the image due to movement during the more-or-less simultaneous exposures. The background was (unavoidably) underexposed, and the bird (unfortunately) overexposed somewhat using this methodology, so heavy photoshop adjustments have been applied to the image to "normalize" the apparent exposure between bird and background.
A wide angle zoom lens was used at 25mm focal length to provide a good field of view on the background, and improved hyperfocal characteristics, and also the image was shot at f22 to improve the depth of field, so that the background could be displayed with adequate detail. However, since the hummingbird is the main star of the image, the focus is directly on him, as the eyelashes clearly reveal. (Orbital Feathers.) The flash used is a rather powerful Olsen Ultra flash, with 4 flash heads and a 1/20000th second flash duration at 1/2 power. (A rather old and dangerous design, which would cost about $40,000 to replace with modern technology.)
There are very few flowers in the area in March and April, and I suspect that part of the reason that these bird's range has expanded to these regions over the years is the popularity of hummingbird feeders in the year-long birder residents in the communities which surround and extend into these sky Islands. Indeed, many rarer "Mexican" species are found in these sky islands where birding tourism has become an established part of the local economies of communities in the region. At Cave Creek, where this shot was taken, the Blue Throated Hu hummingbird is about as common as the Magnificent hummingbirds, although it is not a year-round resident.
Uploaded
June 30th, 2013
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