I am always amazed at how quickly the glorious colors of a hummingbird’s gorget change from gem-like brilliance to almost black in an instant. And, they don’t need direct sunlight or even flash to highlight the colors. Homer visited the feeders late Tuesday afternoon. He stayed about 50 seconds, just long enough to satisfy my need for a hummingbird photograph or two. Even without the flash in the shadows of late afternoon, I managed a couple of shots of his glorious gorget but as he turned almost imperceptibly away from me, the colors faded away to black. The background colors are also different because I moved a bit to avoid getting the feeder in the shot. In the first shot, I had to remove a corner of the feeder, using Photoshop Content Aware fill. In the second, after moving a few inches, I avoided the feeder altogether and got a better background color, just not enough color on Homer.
