I got up around my normal time and started to work on a blog entry. I had my regular breakfast after J got out of bed, and while I was eating I put fresh batteries back in the flashes and got everything ready to photograph hummingbirds. I headed out around 9:00.

Some cooperative female Broad-Tailed Hummingbirds (left) came to the feeder at our photography setup and some not-so-cooperative immature males came too. I like the exposure on the background in this image much better than in the image from yesterday. J came out to photograph around 10:55 and I went inside the RV.

I downloaded and downselected the images I took this morning, then I finished the blog entry. I started to clean the sensor on my Canon 1Ds Mk III and used my new Visible Dust BriteVue Sensor Loupe 7X for the first time. It's a loupe with some built-in LEDs to illuminate the sensor, and it's fantastic. Previously, I just took test shots to look for dust, and figured that was the cheap way to go. However, after some tough dust spots that required many test shots, I finally broke down and purchased a BriteVue Sensor Loupe 7X. It was money well spent! It was much faster to check the sensor with the BriteVue Sensor Loupe 7X than by taking test shots. If you have been thinking about purchasing one, don't wait any longer — after you use it the first time, you'll wonder why you waited at all! It started raining around 12:20 so I went out to take down the hummingbird photography setup. I cleaned the Canon 1Ds Mk III sensor some more.

I finally had lunch around 12:50 — I had been so involved with the sensor cleaning that I forgot all about it. The rain stopped around 1:05, and I headed out around 1:20 to set up the hummingbird photography setup again.

I photographed more female Broad-Tailed Hummingbirds, but didn't get any great shots. I packed up the setup after it started to rain again.

I went back in the RV around 2:20 just before it started to pour! I downselected the images I took and downselected them. Then I took pictures of my second Quantum Turbo 2x2 Battery, a Quantum Cable CZ for Canon flashes, a Quantum Cable CS4 for Sunpak flashes, and a Quantum QT49 10-ft (3m) extension cord so I can list them on eBay. Then I processed the images and started to work up text for the ads. The rain stopped and conditions looked good for hummingbird photography, so I went out around 4:55 to set up our hummingbird photography setup.

I used J's pink background that was a print of an out-of-focus picture of a blooming red-bud tree. I got a fantastic image of a female Broad-Tailed Hummingbird with her dirty tongue sticking out (left). She had just approached the feeder, stuck her tongue in briefly, then backed off to find out why it was covered with sand. I think her tongue picked up sand from her bill when she stuck it out, but I can't imagine why the tip of her bill was covered with sand. J came out around 6:20 to photograph for a while.

I went back in the RV and had a Clif Bar to hold me over until dinner. I downloaded and downselected the images I took then finished the ads for the items I was going to eBay.

We took down the hummingbird setup around 7:20 and J finished preparing dinner.
We had dinner around 7:30 of leftover J's pasta sauce over bow tie pasta and leftover corn on the cob.

After I did the dishes, I listed the items on eBay. Then I selected and processed two images for the blog.