I photographed this male Cardinal at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge during my recent trip to Rockport, Texas. I was hiking along the Heron Flats trail when I encountered him singing at the top of his lungs. I was impressed by how red he was. I followed him from tree to tree and could not get a clear shot. This was the shot with the least amount of branches. As it turns out, he was trying to impress a female cardinal nearby and I was probably getting in the way. He was successful attracting her and their romance began. They flew off before I could get a photo of them together. I guess I should have posted this one yesterday since it was Valentine’s Day… Oh well.
This image was taken with my Canon EOS 7D Mark II using my Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 II Lens set on 400mm. The camera was set on Aperture Priority mode with the aperture set at f/6.3, shutter speed at 1/500th of a second and the ISO set at 320. This is a single image processed in Lightroom and finalized in Photoshop using Nik Color Efex Pro.
You can view my Birds of Texas collection by clicking here. Please use the section below to post your comments, questions, or suggestions.
Very nice. Great to see them out in the wild. Also nice to see full color as opposed to summer molt.
Thanks Lucas. He was great to look at and his singing was amazing as well.