Cardinal caught at rest by Good Neighbor Tim

/ July 12, 2015

Last winter I had the good fortune to catch a flurry of Cardinal action between my backyard, that of Good Neighbor Tim and his wonderful wife Lorraine and the spot behind our fence.

The red birds like this spot by the Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Syracuse.

But my iPhone 6 and iPad Air photography can’t really get the elusive and darty birds close up. Not yet, anyway. As my dear wife Karen can attest, they love to tease me as we sit on our red chairs during our she’s-home-from-work catch-up time.

Tim sent me an email this week.

Look at me.

Look at me. (Photos by Tim Garriques)

I'm comfortable.

I’m comfortable.

He’s got a real camera. A real nice camera. He’s good with it.

Can you believe he chose to apologize to me about lack of quality of these two beauties? Well, maybe they’d not be chosen by the American Ornithological Society for a coffee table book, but, I think they’re pretty darn swift.

And as Tim said further, they do prove that the male Cardinal is getting comfortable with us.

Thank you, Good Neighbor Tim. Happy July, indeed.

What kind of birds are you spotting around your home these days? If you’ve had luck photographing birds, what are your best tips? What are your favorite neighborhood birds, and why?

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56 thoughts on “Cardinal caught at rest by Good Neighbor Tim”

      • Ha! A goffer is a slip of the key times two, if that’s what I typed. I apparently meant to type gopher, which is not what I meant at all. What I actually meant was groundhog. Groundhogs are entirely new to me and, apparently, all over here. I often accidentally refer to them as gophers, although I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a gopher before either. Prairie dogs, maybe.

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  5. Oh man! I have cardinal photograph envy! I cannot, for the life of me, capture our cardinals! They are soooo elusive! Camera shy? Gah, I dunno, but we’ve got two pair, and one male has been here since we got here, and I see him almost every day, but I cannot get the shot! One time I was less than a foot from him while he sat in the hibiscus! I was so close that I could see the yellow in his eye! I averted my gaze and I dared not make more eye contact, but I could see him looking at me, while I stood there trying not to breathe. I wonder if you couldn’t ask Tim to come over here with his good camera and his great skills?!? lol
    I love the chickadees in winter — they’re my favorites, but yes, the cardinals are beautiful! Really, it’s the squirrels I love so much! 😀

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    • You’re like me with the cardinals, Joey. I get only the blur and they’re gone, gone, gone. Hey, Tim, road trip to Indy? 🙂 Chickadees are fun from the start, what with that name. From second to seventh grade, Joey, I lived on Chickadee Lane! Ha. Thanks for reminding me. Speaking of squirrels, have you ever visited Bill at http://evilsquirrelsnest.com? It’s where all the cool squirrels hang out. I love his blog.

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      • Our neighborhood was called the Bird Section. Chickadee ran into Redwing, and that ran into Bobolink. Great street names in Levittown, on Long Island, Joey. Yeah, numbered streets are just so easy for the city planner.

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  7. We’ve had so many species. We are separated from a large river (Schuylkill) by a patch of woods, full of all sorts of wildlife.We feed them. They crap on our stuff. It’s a vicious cycle, but we continue. ☺
    They say, Mark, that cardinals visit to remind you of someone that has passed away. Not sure, but a nice thought. 💕

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  9. We rarely see anything exotic here unless someone is carrying their parrot around with them. Once my husband saw a whole bunch of parakeets inhabiting a whole block’s worth of trees while he was walking the kids to school. Apparently it was an amazing sight for all the kids walking that day. Of course, I missed it! Darn!

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  11. Birds are hard to shoot, especially with a phone Mark! They say a good bird shot also capture its eyes. I have a few friends who are really good at this!

    I like good neighbor Tim’s photo though and every time you say that I think of that show Home Improvement with Tim Allen. Didn’t his neighbor always call Tim his good neighbor Tim?

    I see mostly Magpies around here Mark. ❤
    Diana xo

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    • Maybe his over-the-fence neighbor Tim did call him that on the show, Diana! And here I thought I was being original. I am Al Borland in my other life, though, so I probably am borrowing the phrase. 🙂 ❤ Magpies. Cool!

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  12. Great shots! This past week we had cardinals at our kitchen window feeder. I noticed the male while I was working because of their loud chirping–somehow the cats slept through it. I later saw a female cardinal on the sidewalk pecking around.

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  14. I put out our dried bread for the birds in the yard which are mostly starlings, chickadees, and wrens. The cardinal is the state bird, and I hear them calling every day but I never get to see them! Maybe I’ll get a feeder again with sunflower seeds then I might get a chance at a great picture like these.

    The feeders are a challenge because the squirrels always knock them out of the trees 🙂

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  16. That’s a remarkable coloured bird – I had to look it up. http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Cardinal/id

    I’ve only recently started “birding” (if you can call it that) and taking photos of them. Most of the ones I’ve taken are semi-wild, captive birds on reserves where they are used to people. My only success at taking a photo of a truly wild bird was when a passing swallow alighted on a post about three feet from where I sat. V-e-r-y v-e-r-y s–l–o–w–l–y I reached for my camera and took a few snaps before it flew off.
    So my tips would be – be in the right place at the right time – move very slowly and quietly – and always have a camera with you.

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  17. Beautiful shots of beautiful cardinals. We have a family of young ones hanging around our yard, the males are still not that brilliant red just yet. Cat birds, Starlings, Robins and Woodpeckers come to visit. I never tire of watching them. We had a feeder that attaches to a window and nothing beat that for a real close up look- at each other!

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  20. We’ve loads around us just now, my Dad has a little bird table, so there has been a flurry of fresh activity with all the young ones coming up. We have however noticed an increase in crows who will just about eat everything, whether you leave it for them or not lol

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