Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis)

These are gorgeous birds with a very sweet song.  The males are a bright red with a black eye stripe, auriculars and chin.  A distinguishing feature of the Northern Cardinal is the crest that both male and female birds have.  The females are, however, brown in colour with reddish tinges on the wings and a bright red bill.

Click here to see more information on the Northern Cardinals habitat, behaviour and calls.

I have spotted these birds a handful of times, out of which I was able to take proper images only on a couple of occasion.  The first time I spotted one, the bird was so high up in a tree, that I thought I wouldn't get any semblance of a picture at all, since I was using the 55 - 250 mm lens.  The next time was another washout, because the bird chose to hop in and out of the undergrowth on my neighbour's property.  They say one's third time lucky, but for me it was actually the fourth time when I finally got this bird feeding in someone's backyard.  I would have missed him completely, had I not been trying to track a yellow warbler at the time and just happened to get behind a tree.  This guy was really well hidden behind the tree, but he couldn't escape my camera after all!

These couple of shots are by far the best ones that I have.