My first hummingbird shots

At the pool today, I spotted what I thought was a butterfly. Then I noticed it wasn't moving like a butterfly. Then I noticed it was a tiny bird! I thought hummingbirds were larger, so this tiny avian really took me by surprise. I went home to get my camera and tripod and probably got some strange looks from other folks at the pool while setting up... I was too concerned with getting my shots to actually notice. BTW, there were originally two hummingbirds, but I only saw one, or one at a time (who can be sure from 20 feet away) once I had the camera ready.

I had to keep my distance so I wouldn't scare it/them, so I used full zoom and tried to pre-set my focus on some of the floral clusters they were frequenting. Check out the slideshow below. The images aren't great, because of their size, my distance, and the fact that it was necessary to severely crop the images. Prior to cropping these photos were like a "Where's Waldo" picture, Waldo, in this case, being the hummingbird. I'm excited to have caught my first hummingbird photos. If you click to visit my Picasa gallery, you'll find my other recent collections from my first Reds game at Great American Ballpark, the 2008 Dayton Airshow, and some pretty cool new cicada images. Enjoy!