Photo of the Week: Rufous Hummingbird

If you can't lick 'em, join 'em

TO PHOTOGRAPH THIS RUFOUS HUMMINGBIRD, Dave Shreffler had to outwit it.  “For several days, I had been noticing that hummingbirds consistently landed in a certain spot after drinking from our feeder.  Early one drizzly morning, I set up my tripod and longest lens focused on the landing spot in the top of a mock orange bush,” the Sequim, Washington, resident writes.  But the birds moved to another spot in the yard.  Shreffler set up his equipment there, only to have the birds go back to the mock orange.  He reset in his original position and went inside.  An hour later, he returned and was able to shoot hundreds of images.  He liked the bird’s long tongue in this image.  Shreffler used a Nikon D300 with a 300mm lens, 1.7x teleconverter and a tripod.