Wednesday, July 29, 2009

The Playful Cardinals

This path in the photo is a very special place. It is in a small section of the forest that is right next to a huge meadow. The meadow was to my back as I took this picture. This is an area that very many types of birds like to gather. And that is exactly what I saw, but this was a little different.

Whenever I come to this place I begin looking for birds so might get a few lucky pictures of something. I like to stand in this path and wait for the birds to come out. It almost never works because of my impatience. I usually give up and look for other adventures, after I get a few very blurry pictures.

As I arrived at the entrance to this path this time something strange happened. From the trees on the left, at about as high as my waist, a Cardinal flew across the path almost too fast to see. As I stood there feeling slightly stunned another one shot by! Then after the second one was gone a third cardinal flew past! Zip! I got one blurry picture, without any cardinals.

I was kind of irritated with everything that just happened, so I decided I was just going to go back to the meadow and look at something else. After only a few seconds I saw something in the trees at the edge of the forest. It was another bird!

This bird wasn't just another bird though. It was a female cardinal! It was the first female cardinal I had ever seen! A male cardinal is colored a brilliant red, so it is usually pretty easy to see. Go here to see a few pictures that are a little better. The females on the other hand are not as brilliantly colored. They are mostly light brown with maybe a little red.

If you click on the picture you can see the bird a little better, and I circled it to make it even easier. But wait, there's more! Not only is there a female in the trees, there is a male in the tree behind the female! Both of these birds were watching me.

After they finally left, I got distracted with other things so I made my way up the meadow path beside the forest. While I was taking pictures (I do a lot of that), I saw some more movement in the trees. It couldn't be more cardinals could it?

Yes it could! These cardinals seem to have been following me up the trail. They were watching me through the trees! I changed the direction of my camera towards them and began trying to get a few good shots, even though they were mostly hidden by the branches of the trees.

I got only a few decent shots of this one bird. The female was also there, but that picture wasn't so good. After the birds left, I also decided to reenter the bigger section of the forest. The cardinals weren't going to follow me in there. It had been fun playing with these playful cardinals, but there were other things to see and more adventures ahead.

I want to remind you to follow the links in this and my other posts, because they can lead to very interesting places.

16 comments:

  1. I have the feeling seeing monkeys atop the trees the way you found cardinals up there.
    I always fail to get their pictures, not because they move fast, but due to the bright background.

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  2. It's very hard to take pictures of birds for me..Seem like there is a cardinal who stops by my vegetable garden every morning, but I couldn't snap even one shot..Great capture, Ratty!

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  3. Thanks for sharing - great post and I liked the pictures. Cardinals are very pretty - have yet to see any around here.

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  4. I love cardinals. Growing up, my mom kept a bird feeder out side the living room window and a lovely red bird could always been seen snacking at it. I see them every now and then where we live now, along with blue birds and ravens. Goodness, do we have ravens!

    ~Jen

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  5. how very interesting ratty. i didn't know that the female cardinal was a different color. i can see them both in the picture. very nice.

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  6. How wonderful! I have only seen one cardinal here, and by the time I ran to get my camera, it had flown away.

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  7. another wonderful experience for you, sometimes, when we are about to give up, nature just calls us back, always reminding us "where's your patience?" it's great you saw several of them. wonderful pictures.

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  8. Those birds are so cute and colorful. It's very difficult to get shots of birds. I encountered a baby hummingbird during my walk in the gardens the other day and was trying to get a shot but she was too fast. I was running around stalking her but no luck. People were looking at me like I was nuts :-)

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  9. I've yet to get a decent shot of a Cardinal. They keep leading me on wild goose chases from tree to tree always too far or fleeting to get a focus on them.

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  10. We were lucky enough to have a pair of rocky mountain bluebirds nest in our birdhouse on the front porch this year. Awesome little birds, I would love to see a cardinal.

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  11. Great shot of Cardinal birds.
    I always wondering on how those National Geography photographers able to capture those wildlife so close and personal :)

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  12. Ohh lovely bird spotting shots! And I could almost hear birds chirping now. Oh, it's midnight here so hmm... could be the bats! lol

    ~Daisy
    http://inlovewithdaisies.blogspot.com/

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  13. i love that little path..I know it is not easy taking pictures of birds..I failed many a times :(

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  14. I'm glad you got to see both Cardinals. I have one pair or maybe two but I only see the male the most. I have seen a juvenile female lately though. Haven't gotten any great shots yet. They jump around so fast it is very hard to get a good shot. have fun in your "Forest" Ratty. I like your little adventures!

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  15. Ratty, your Cardinal photos are great. I remember seeing them all the time growing up in Georgia but I never see them here. I will have to do a bit of research to see if they are here in SE WA.

    Great post as always.

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  16. Thanks for all of the comments for this cardinal story. I read each and every one. Sorry I didn't respond to each one individually, but I'm running behind again. I'm working out a good plan so I can stay caught up pretty soon.

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