House Finch,Cardinal and a Hairy Woodpecker

[Jim Almquist]

Some of the birds hanging around the house looking for free handouts A little change in the weather between shots

[Steve Foss]

Jim, thanks for sharing those. I REALLY like that first female cardinal shot. Pretty environmental portrait.

Our back yard looks just like that. When I pulled up this afternoon, the female cardinal was on the feeder, but it was a bit too far for my lens, really. I gave her a shot anyway, and will post a companion female cardinal here if any of them look OK.

A week to go, and it will all melt away. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Thanks again for posting these.

[Steve Foss]

Here's my contribution, Jim. I like your first cardinal image a lot better.

Canon Digital Rebel XT, Canon 100-400L IS at 400mm, iso400, 1/500 at f8, Av mode, center-weighted metering, exposure compensation at +2/3, handheld with rest on car window

[Dbl]

Wait....is that snow? We don't have any of that stuff in the metro! Nice shots by both.

[Swimmer]

Nice shots Jim and Steve. I have couple of female Cardinal shots where the end of the tail feathers look a little beat up -- like these. I don't see this in males so much...have any of you observed this phenomena too? I'll post them in a couple of days along with a ? juvenile male that has a head like foghorn-leghorn.

[MarchelRipley1]

The composition on Mr. Catfishes Cardinal shot is interesting to me, instead of opening up the frame in the direction the bird is looking, he instead chose to go against the standard compositional rules. Thats the beauty of photography, no rules, just do as you please. It does however leave a fair amount of open space to the right of the bird.

[Steve Foss]

You're right, Bill. I did that because I wanted to include the background bokeh fading from white to dark, which allowed more of the snowflakes to show up, as well as showing the snow mounded over the feeder.

Wish it could have been more than the grab shot it was.