I took my Canon EOS Rebel SL3 camera with me on my morning walk, when this Cardinal lit atop the anti-squirrel cone on the bird feeder crook. Zoom lens set to 250mm in the camera’s “program” mode, which is the setting for automatically adjusting aperture, shutter speed and ISO speed. Clickable image.
It is a nice, sunny morning here with temperatures in the 50s F. The forecast is for possible rain over night and for the next few days. We need it.
UPDATE: [02/05/25] In the interest of being fair and balanced, I took an image of the Female of the Cardinalis species in a mesquite tree out back near the birdfeeders. Click to open the image viewer.
We don’t have Cardinals here, or at least not that I’ve seen. We have lots of Blue Jays, and IIRC they don’t get along very well.
I checked the map where cardinals range, and Colorado and most places west of the Rockies don’t see them. They range in most of the eastern half of the Continental US with AZ being a western exception to that.
We see Jays once in a while, but probably only on their way from South to North and vice versa.