As we discovered after putting up hummingbird feeders earlier this year, hummingbirds make a lot of noise. There’s the humming sound of their flight, from whence their name arises. There’s also the chittering sound of our many Anna’s Hummingbirds going about their daily business: arriving at the feeder, warning of an impending human encounter, or squabbling over feeding rights.
All birds are wild, and hummers are no exception. They do, however, start to tolerate close approach once they get used to the fact that we slow-moving big humans are the ones who provide the food to the several dozen hummers that visit the feeders and bathe in the fountain in our courtyard.
What they don’t seem to like very much, though, is the noise of my Nikon’s mechanical shutter.
I discovered this earlier in the week when Marcella called me over to mention that she’d seen a Rufous Hummingbird at the feeder. I was incredulous at first: are you sure it wasn’t an Allen’s? They’re pretty hard to distinguish. She was pretty sure it was a Rufous, and after a couple of days staking out the feeders with my cameras, I’m pretty sure she’s right!
The first day I used my Sony, a mirrorless camera with a silent shutter. The camera can track birds in flight and even zero in on their eye to make sure the most important element in most bird photos is in focus. It’s an amazing piece of technology that I’ve started to take for granted over the past couple of years since I bought it.
The second day I used my trusty old Nikon D850, which my Sony replaced. (I bought the Sony after a particularly frustrating day at Point Buchon where the Nikon refused to focus on an Osprey passing nearby.) It’s a DSLR, with a very fast shutter and a good prime telephoto lens. I can even use it in silent mode, but to do that I have to use the camera back instead of the eyepiece, and I’m just not used to doing that.
I think I might have to learn, though, because I found out while shooting the Nikon that the noise of the shutter spooks the birds. And when they’re only about 3 meters away, they tend to nope out first and not get around to asking questions later. Here are two mini galleries; the Sony gallery has the best of the many decent photos I took on day one; the Nikon gallery has the only three shots that produced even marginal results (though one is actually quite fine, I must admit–good enough that I’ve made it the featured image on this post).
Rufous Hummingbird as shot with the Silent Sony
Rufous Hummingbird as shot with the Noisy Nikon
