A pair of dashing cardinals, and Albert the white-headed jay, in snow

Yesterday dawned cold and snowy. It was one of very few snowfalls in central Ohio this winter, and perhaps the best to date. I was stuck at home, working on a book project, but what is life without birds and photography? So, as soon as it was light enough, I took some snaps while the snow still clung to the branches. Albert, the gorgeous white-headed blue jay, was my main quarry but lots of other subjects presented themselves, including these cardinals.

A male northern cardinal glows from a snowy branch. Cardinals are one of the showiest North American birds, and look dazzling anywhere, anytime. But there's nothing that makes the males pop like a fresh coat of snow.

Because this is such a common songbird, it's possible to become jaded to cardinals. Never let that happen. It hardly seems possible that such a gorgeous, exotic-looking animal could be in our midst.

Here's the crimson fellow's mate. She looks fabulous too. Just in a more understated way. The lengthening days have stimulated cardinals to increase their singing. It's a beautiful whistled song often described as "cheery". And that it is. If you have the time to look, it's always worth glancing around to locate the singer. I constantly do this, with all singing birds, as it's a great way to keep honing your ability to rapidly find birds. But there's another possible reward for finding singing cardinals. It might be the female that is singing! They don't sing as often as males, but when they do it's every bit as melodic and artful as the male.

And here he is, Albert, "my" amazing blue jay! He's looking at me as if to say, "what have you done!", in reference to the snow. As he was born last year, this is his (I don't really know if it's a him or her, but with a name like Albert, I'll go with him :-)) first winter. And first exposures to snow.

Albert remains a fixture, bombarding the feeders for unshelled peanuts and other seed every day, especially in the morning. The morning that I made this image, I replenished the feeders shortly after daybreak, and Albert was out there berating me for moving too slowly. He's quite bold, as jays are, and freely speaks his mind. I have been pleased to see that he does not allow the "normie" jays to push him about.

This special white-headed jay has been here for over a month now, and it'll be interesting to see how long he remains.

Northern cardinal, eating holly berries

A bright male northern cardinal, its plumage rivaling that of the colorful winterberry holly (Ilex verticillata) drupes that it sits among. As stated in the previous post, the holly garden at Dawes Arboretum can be a fantastic place to drum up showy bird images.

Female Northern Cardinal, in flight

A female Northern Cardinal nears a perch, and flares its wings. This species, which is Ohio's state bird, is very common in central Ohio where I live. They're pretty easy to photograph, at least when at rest, but are so striking I could probably shoot them all day.

One way to try and make photographs of very common species stand out is to capture them in unusual postures, situations, or in flight. Making a sharp image of a rapidly moving songbird on the wing (click the photo to enlarge) is not easy. In this situation, there was a feeder a few feet to the left, and that's where this bird is headed. As it was about 12 F when I made this image, birds were hungry and the feeders were quite active, and I saw an opportunity. By pre-focusing my camera at a point a few feet off the feeder's right side, I could wait, (frozen) finger on the trigger, for targets to enter the bulls-eye zone.

I got plenty of opportunities with several species, but the vast majority of images will be throw-aways. Only a few times did I nail a photo when the bird was: 1) smack in the focus area; 2) and displaying good posture ( head not turned away, wings in a pleasing position, etc.). Because of the cold and the need to attend to something else, I only spent about a half-hour at this, but want to go back and try some more.

This shot was made with the new Canon 5D IV, and I'm finding this to be a stellar camera, especially for bird photography. Its focus acquisition system is amazing, and it handles high ISO levels well. For this shot I used the Canon 800mm f/5.6 lens, at f/5.6, 1/2000, ISO 1600, exposure compensation +1.7, no flash.