I love male Northern Cardinals in the winter. They add such a wonderful pop of bright color on a cloudy day, like yesterday when I took this shot, or on a snowy day like today (when I hope to see one in my neighborhood).
I spotted this Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) while exploring Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, my current favorite spot for walking about with my camera. We have already had about 6 inches (10 cm) of snow and more is falling, so I probably will not make it out of the neighborhood today. The streets are not yet clear and people in this area tend to drive even more crazily than normal when there is snow.
I took a number of shots of the cardinal while he was perched in a distant tree. Although he remained relatively stationary, he kept changing his tail position, so I decided to include shots with different “poses.”
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
One of my favorite birds. I remember them well from when I lived back east. When I heard the males sing in February, it was a sign spring was not far off. Unfortunately they do not come this far west. I miss them!
I love cardinals and saw a small group of them in the snow yesterday. I didn’t realize that they are not found out West.
The contrast of the red against the white is awesome! I too love cardinals in the snow! And we woke up to snow this mornimg. Love how it makes everything bright, as long as I don’t have to go anywhere. 🙂
Needs to balance on that twig!
They are such handsome birds. Great photos, Mike
Thanks, Dan. Female cardinals are equally beautiful, though they don’t stand out quite as much.
They are, Mike. We see a couple up here in the summer. They are stunning.
Beautiful
You haven’t requested opinions but I guess I’m feeling opinionated so please bear with me… I can’t resist opining that I like the bottom photo best of all! I can’t get enough of seeing these wonderful Cardinal boys that you have over there!!
I always welcome opinions about my photos, Liz, particularly when there are a number of them in a posting. Usually I will lead with the one I think is the best or the one that is most likely to catch a viewer’s eyes. In this case, I went with the more traditional poses of the cardinal. The final photo has a much more distinctive look–a cardinal with attitude.
Yes, definite attitude there Mike.. I love the shot! 🙂 I just found a new NZ blogger’s photo of a NZ dragonfly taken while they were out hiking in the North Island – have just asked them if I can post it on Exploring Colour. Fingers crossed!
It will be months before I see one here, so I would welcome a shot of a dragonfly. I spent a good part of today shoveling snow. It snowed off an on all day, with a total accumulation of over a foot (30 cm).
Nigel just told me he’d read earlier that Washington had a lot of snow. I don’t imagine you relish shovelling snow but what a transformation of the landscape.. it must look like a magic winterland!
Great captures of a wonderful winter combo of Cardinal and white, Mike. Hope you are all cleaned up from that snow this morning, an agony I don’t miss at all!