A Conclave of Cardinals

The Northern Cardinals (typically referred to simply as cardinals, but there are other species in the Cardinal family) were very active when I walked the Yanaguana Nature Trail on Wednesday, March 7. Cardinals are generally easy to see because of their bright red color, but they are as likely as any other bird to be difficult to photograph, because they do tend to live in densely vegetated areas.

These cardinals were spending a little longer than usual feeding out in the open which greatly reduced the degree of difficulty in getting a series of photos. The males, there are at least three individuals pictured here, were keeping an eye on me to be sure I remained at a safe distance. The one female seemed to be genuinely curious about what I was doing: