I went outside to take a few photos since changing settings on my camera. This sentence makes the afternoon sound much more peaceful than it actually was.

In my head, this was going to be one of those quiet photo moments. Me, my camera, the hummingbird feeder, maybe a couple of cooperative little birds who would hover politely in good light while I figured out what I was doing with my 600mm lens. And no one explained the plan to the hummingbirds. They had their own schedule. Their own rules. From what I could tell, absolutely no concept of taking turns.

It started innocently enough. One little hummingbird appeared in the distance, hovering above the feeder like it was assessing the situation before committing. I was watching through my camera, waiting.

The feeder was hanging there. The morning light was coming through the trees. Everything was quiet. For about 3 seconds. Because a hummingbird feeder isn’t a feeder. It’s an airport. And I was about to discover that air-traffic control had called in sick.

The first bird moved closer. This is one thing that I love about photographing wildlife. You start watching differently. At first, you’re just trying to get the picture. Then you start noticing the behavior. The hesitation. The hovering. The way they seem to stop in midair and look at something before deciding whether it is safe or not.

From something that weighs practically nothing, a hummingbird can somehow have the facial expression of someone who just walked into Walmart and immediately regretted it.

This one hovered near the feeder for a moment. I waited. Camera up. Finger on the shutter. Come on. Just a little closer.

And then I got the moment I had been waiting for.

The bird stopped beside the blue feeder, wings stretched wide, suspended in the air. For a fraction of a second, everything lined up. This is the funny thing I find about photography. The moment itself happens so quickly that sometimes you don’t even realize what you’ve captured until later. You just keep shooting.

Especially with hummingbirds.

Because there is no “Hold that pose.” There is only, “PLEASE COME BACK. I WASN’T READY.”

But this one worked. The blue grass. The green background. Those tiny wings. One little bird hanging in the air where nothing should logically be able to hang. And suddenly the hundreds of photographs where I had a blurry wing, half a bird, an empty feeder, or absolutely nothing where a hummingbird had been half a second earlier didn’t matter quite as much.

I got one.

I discovered there wasn’t just one. There were customers. A red feeder was open for business, and another hummingbird came flying in. At this point, I stopped pretending I was directing anything. I was simply documenting the chaos.

One would arrive. One would leave. Another would appear from somewhere I had not been watching. I would swing the camera around. Gone. Another bird. Shoot. Gone.

I don’t know how something so tiny can make a grown woman with a Nikon feel so slow, but here we are.

And then things got interesting. One hummingbird was already at the feeder when another showed up. Now, you would think a reasonable creature may see that someone else is eating and think: I’ll wait. Not hummingbirds; apparently they think: Absolutely not.

There were two. One at the feeder. One hovering nearby. I swear you could feel the tiny-bird tension through the camera. It was less peaceful backyard nature photography and more like a Wild West showdown, except everyone involved weighs less than a nickel.

No one seemed to be backing down. No one wanted to share. Here I was, standing on my porch, taking photos like the neighborhood gossip who had just discovered something was happening across the yard.

Eventually, someone had to wait. Sort of.

I am using the phrase waiting his turn generously because I am not convinced hummingbirds actually believe in turns. I think they believe in opportunity.

If the feeder is open, go.
If another bird is there, check it out.
If necessary, hover menacingly.

But somewhere in all that movement, I caught one of the quieter moments. A bird waiting near the feeder.

Another favorite part of photographing things like this. Not necessarily the technically perfect picture. Not always the photograph you would put on the wall. Sometimes it’s the picture that completes the story. Because what I ended up photographing this morning, not just hummingbirds, but a tiny little community happening right outside my house that I wouldn’t have paid nearly as much attention to if I hadn’t picked up my camera this morning.

There were arrivals and departures. There were regular customers. There were arguments over seating. Apparently, there was no management to be found. And there was definitely a waiting list.

I went outside this morning and changed my settings with zero intention of taking more shots with my camera. Instead, I spent the morning watching tiny birds conducting their very serious business around a couple of feeders. Somewhere between trying to keep them in focus, following them through a 600mm lens, and wondering how on earth something could disappear from my viewfinder so quickly, I remembered one of the reasons I love photography in the first place.

It makes me look longer. There are entire stories happening around us every day. Most of them aren’t announcing themselves. Sometimes they’re happening on an old wooden post. Sometimes they’re hiding in trees. And sometimes they’re moving about 900 mph toward a feeder full of sugar water (and big ants) while you’re yelling internally:

WAIT! I WASN’T READY!