08/28/2025
A Hummingbird Evening
This evening began like so many others, with a simple meal at my kitchen table. I hadn’t planned on a grand adventure, but the heroes of my story...seven hummingbirds...appeared outside the window, darting and weaving through the yard. Were they fighting, dancing, or choosing partners for their long migration south? I didn’t know, but I felt the call to step outside and try once more to capture them in flight.
For years, the challenge has been the same...being in the right place at the right time, camera ready. Hummingbirds don’t wait for you to prepare. They arrive like sparks of lightning, gone as fast as they appear. More often than not, I’ve been left with empty frames, blurred wings, or nothing at all. But tonight felt different.
I grabbed my favorite lens, picked up a lawn chair, and slipped into the yard. There, in the open, I waited. I’ve learned a secret about these fluttering darts in the sky: if you sit quietly, they will come back. They’re not afraid of us. As I settled into my seat, they returned zipping past within twenty feet, buzzing like tiny engines, unconcerned with the human in their midst.
The test began. My fast lens and faster shutter (1/5000 of a second) would be my tools to capture their impossible speed. I raised the camera, and in that moment, instinct met opportunity. One shot, then another, then dozens more. Many were blurred, out of frame, or just empty space where a hummingbird had been a blink before, but then, as if rewarded for patience, a handful of frames revealed near perfection. Wings caught mid-beat, feathers shining, moments frozen that my eyes alone could never hold.
As the light faded, I felt the quiet triumph of the evening. The quest wasn’t easy, it rarely is with hummingbirds, but tonight I had met the challenge. I had glimpsed their dance, captured fragments of their story, and in doing so, completed another small chapter in mine. An image freezing a hummingbird in flight.
