Capturing chicks' first flight

Mother hummingbird and offspring are stars of couple's new DVD

F. ANDREW TAYLOR/VIEWDon Carroll watches a hummingbird sip from a feeder in his yard. The lifelong photographer turned his talents to videography to document the lives of the hummingbirds in his yard. Photos by F. ANDREW TAYLOR/VIEWAbove, Don Carroll tugs lightly on a branch in his backyard to reveal baby hummingbirds in a nest, one of many in his yard. Right, Noriko Carroll sits on her back porch and talks about filming the family of hummingbirds. Photos by F. ANDREW TAYLOR/VIEWAbove, Don Carroll tugs lightly on a branch in his backyard to reveal baby hummingbirds in a nest, one of many in his yard. Right, Noriko Carroll sits on her back porch and talks about filming the family of hummingbirds. Special to viEWDon Carroll watches a hummingbird in his Sunrise-area backyard in a still image from a film he and his wife, Noriko, just completed, "First Flight: A Mother Hummingbird?s Story." Advertisement

When professional photographers Noriko and Don Carroll moved to Las Vegas in the spring of 2002, they assumed they'd find a new project to work on, but they just didn't expect that they'd find it before they unpacked. They arrived at their new home in the foothills of Sunrise Mountain and stepped out on their back porch only to find a sign with an arrow pointing up reading "Be Careful!! Hummingbird's Nest Above!"

There, on a clothesline on the porch, was a tattered nest smaller than a walnut. To their amazement, a hummingbird flew within a few feet of them and started rebuilding the nest. They unpacked their cameras and began work on what would become "First Flight, A Mother Hummingbird's Story." It was Noriko Carroll's second book and Don Carroll's third.

The couple dubbed the mother hummingbird Honey, and they grew quite attached to her and her broods. They photographed the daily goings on of the bird and watched as she laid eggs and raised her babies, tirelessly feeding them until they flew away. Each year, she returned and laid two more eggs and raised two more chicks. She is a black-chinned hummingbird, a species that winters in Mexico.

"We're fairly certain it's the same mother each year," Don Carroll said. "We can't be sure because we never tagged the birds, but based on certain attitudes she displayed and how comfortable she became with us, we're pretty sure we know Honey from other black-chinned hummingbirds."

Previously, the couple had no particular interest in hummingbirds, but found the proximity and charm of this one irresistible. The project took them several years to complete and brought Don Carroll's years as an effects photographer heavily into play.

"I shot photos like 'What your tongue sees at the dentist's office,' " he said. "In the studio, you have a lot more control. This project was a lot more challenging."

Among the challenges was the fact that the nest was too close to the ceiling to get a camera in comfortably. To overcome this, they mounted a front surface mirror above it, which is typically used for scientific purposes. It eliminated the faint but distracting double image that a traditional mirror would have shown.

"When we started this project, everything else went on hold," Don Carroll said. "We weren't sure what we were going to do after it."

As it turned out, the next project was a continuation with more complications. Returning from a book signing, they found Honey back at the nest, doing her spring rebuilding. Several friends had encouraged them to shoot video of the birds, so they began working on a DVD version of the story they had told in their book.

To do that involved buying a lot of new equipment and learning a whole new set of skills. For Don Carroll, it was the relatively simple adaptation of his photography to videography. For Noriko, it was the more complex task of learning to use the film editing software. Fortunately, she's no stranger to the computer as she began learning photographic editing with Photoshop when the program was in its infancy.

Don Carroll lived in New York City for more than 30 years doing photographic tricks in camera that these days are more likely to be done with Photoshop. He's done commercial and news magazine photography, capturing subjects as diverse as Lenny Bruce and the Dalai Lama.

"I've been really fortunate. I've traveled around the world several times," he said. "Photography has been extremely good to me."

It was while he was on an assignment involving the Dalai Lama that he met Noriko. They met in Bangkok and shared a plane to Nepal, where Noriko had planned to go trekking. It was on the plane that they became friends. Don Carroll had to wait a week in Nepal for paperwork to clear. They spent a lot of time together that week, and soon after, she joined him in New York. They spent a happy decade there until Sept. 11.

"After that, the whole atmosphere changed," Don Carroll said. "The magic of the city died, the energy was gone."

They decided to move on, pondering California at first until deciding on Las Vegas, where the cost of housing and living was less expensive, but still close to California. The beautiful landscape in neighboring Utah and Arizona was a factor, as well.

For the video version of "First Flight," they set cameras up and operated them remotely, with a constant feed running to their computer. They often would watch for hours without turning the tape on, waiting for just the right moment. The final 45-minute documentary was cut from more than 250 hours of footage.

With the still photos, it was simply a matter of patience and catching the right moment.

"You've got to be fast to shoot these," Don Carroll said. "These guys who shoot eagles, they don't impress me. That's like shooting a school bus. Shooting hummingbirds is like shooting a Ferrari."

The same problem of catching the moment applied with the video, but with the added complication of motion. Although the nest is relatively stable on the clothesline, the cameras were set on tripods and zoomed very close in so that a slight breeze that rocked the clothesline an inch or so would make the nest swing wildly in and out of the frame.

Another complication was the addition of sound. The Carrolls live near Charleston Boulevard, and helicopters returning from Grand Canyon tours use that road as a landmark. In the mornings and afternoons, it's rare to go five minutes without a helicopter passing overhead. On top of that, Don Carroll had to teach himself to be quiet while shooting.

"I laugh about it now, but my big mouth ruined so much audio," he said. "It was a blessing because it allowed us to do great narration."

In the end, they did get some clear audio and sounds of the birds in flight, which they looped over the better shots. This wasn't the only Hollywood compromise to reality. They employed stunt birds and body doubles for some of the action, in some cases using footage of similar species of hummingbird. The footage of the babies is in fact from three separate pairs of hatchlings.

In the final product, it all appears to take place in one season and represents the fledging of a single brood. They did a lot of research and talked to experts at UNLV before writing the narration, which Noriko performed.

With the DVD done, now they're concentrating on marketing for the next few months. They remain unclear of what the next project will be after that, but it won't directly involve Honey. For the first time since the Carrolls moved in, Honey didn't come back this spring.

"Hummingbirds have an average lifespan of four or five years, but some have been observed who made it to 10," Noriko Carroll said. "The woman who lived here before watched Honey for about three years. We've watched her for seven. Another bird came by this spring collecting bits of Honey's nest to build another nest nearby."

"I've photographed sharks and I've been on erupting volcanoes, and that was not nearly as tense as this project," Don Carroll said. "On those things, I figure if you miss it, you can get it again. You miss this, the hatching, and you don't have a chance to do it again until next year, and there's never any guarantee the bird is going to come back."

For more information about the Carrolls, Honey and their project, visit www.hummingbirdstory.com.

Contact Sunrise and Whitney View reporter F. Andrew Taylor at ataylor@viewnews.com or 380-4532.