TomKal foto

Being in Iguazú, even if you are not particularly interested in bird beauties, you should visit a place, which is unique on a global scale. Every taxi driver knows this place in  Iguazú and for a few dollars will take you to an amazing hummingbird garden. An admission ticket costs really little. The place itself is very plain. For many years, on a small area of a backgarden, its owner has been hanging water fountains for hummingbirds around. The place is so much in hummingbirds’ taste that you can encounter dozens of them in one moment,  even though they are still wild birds, having no limits and free. The birds are so preoccupied with themselves that every now and then they bump into people admiring them. At first, I’m delighted to see a dozen or a few dozen hummingbirds over a small area and I’m almost sure that I’ll be able to easily take many satisfactory photos. I couldn’t be more wrong. The first problem is inadequate lighting conditions. ISO 1600-3200 and the achieved times 1/250, 1/100s are a nightmare for the photographer. They are such dynamic birds. You would like to use 1/8000, with a certain depth, but you are just unable to use the appropriate settings. However it’s not the end of my troubles. Sitting and admiring this piece of hummingbird paradise is one thing, but capturing it is a totally different story. The first few dozen attempts to take a picture ended in a complete failure. Birds freeze for a second and it is the only moment when you can photograph them in a typical hummingbird-like manner. In this fracture of a second you have to switch from birdwatching without a camera to taking your camera, directing it to the bird, pressing the shutter so that the focus can sharpen the frame and finally taking a series of pictures. Everything happens in a fracture of a second. I assure you, it’s almost impossible. After half an hour in such a place, despite good equipment, I have no photos. To make matters worse, it starts to rain and the lighting conditions worsen to an even greater extent. Happily it does not last long and I’ll have some more opportunities to take pictures on this day. I get back to the hotel. I check what I have on the cards, but I’m not euphoric. Admittedly, there are some clear images of several hummingbird species, but my assembly lacks photos with ultra-short times and with a possibility to use some focal depth. Even a 300/2,8 lens seems to be too dark. I go back there the next day, when the lighting conditions are a notch better. In proportion to the light there are also more people. Yesterday I was there alone, today there are a few bird admirers. A change of the photography technique brings better results. It is recommended to pick the place most frequently visited by birds (steady track used by birds to approach a water fountain), set everything in the camera manually (including focus) and take photos in whole series, as soon as birds appear in the frame. The majority of pictures, 60-70%, can be deleted, but there are also a few photos which are worth saving. After several hours of observation you can learn the birds’ behavior. The way they fly into a place and fly away within short distances is repeatable. Therefore you can always take a few pictures. All in all I managed to photograph 7 hummingbird species. Unfortunately some of these species appeared only 3-4 times and I was only able to take 1-2 series of photos. Thus photo galleries of representatives of the hummingbird family were created, each of the galleries having a different content.  I uploaded the same sound to each gallery – this time the sound of birds flying and a buzz which is specific for this amazing garden. The birds were so close and in such quantities that I decided to record the sound of their wings flutter. It is quite an unusual bird sound, but the gallery of these unusual birds deserves a unique sound recording. This text is common for all captured hummingbird species. A hummingbird’s weight reaches a few grams, with a wingspan of a few centimeters. They are very tiny, but their dynamic flight, freezing in the air have no rivals. Well, maybe among dragonflies, but those have two pairs of wings. In order to be able to fly so deftly you have to have an amazing heart. In this little, few-centimeter body there is a heart which can beat over a thousand times a minute. They are unusual birds and so delicate. An intensifying rain was a hazard to them to such an extent that they all hid for a moment, and I stayed alone on this little bird arena.  I invite you to encounter those little birds, which in fact should be moved from bird galleries to the macro gallery.

Black-Throated Mango, Black Jacobin, Straight-billed hermit, Gilded Hummingbird, Versicoloured Emerald, Swallow-Tailed Hummingbird,Violet-Capped Woodnymph,