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Pink Bromeliad #1

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Photo of Pink Bromeliad aechmea fasciata
Pink Bromeliad aechmea fasciata

My Sunday started as normal with breakfast on the patio and LA Times in tow. While sitting there I noticed that a humming bird visited the bromeliad which is in full-bloom right now. Well of course I decided I just had to get a photo of the humming bird feeding on the blooms. So I got my gear out and set it up for that magnificent shot. Well, the sun has set, and I spent hours waiting, but do you think that bird would show up again? Of course not! I even took inside the two humming bird feeders I have out there to see if that would make the birds look around for alternate food sources, but that didn't work obviously. The birds that have layed claim as the "owners" of each of the feeders continued to sit at their posts all day long guarding and chasing off interlopers to the feeders which were no longer there! Anyhow, I did take a few shots of the flowers, so at least I have that to show for it. Such a beautiful flower too. A common name for this bromeliad is the "urn flower" which comes from the shape of the leaves that the flowers push up from I would presume. At first the flower is just a tight knot of pink in the shape of a star. Then the blue buds appear and that's what the humming bird was feeding on.

Oh, I forgot to say that the humming bird did finally show up again at the flower at about 7:30pm. By then the light was getting low. I did take a shot with the ISO set to 800, but even at that, the exposure was 1/20 sec and the bird was nothing but a blur. Perhaps next weekend...

Update: I finally got a photo of a hummingbird feeding from this pink bromeliad which can be seen here: Photo of Hummingbird Feeding on Bromeliad Flower

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