Well, as it turns out, unless you want to get into changing colors (a bright yellow or process blue Cardinal) they will look quite similar — but there are differences.
I don’t see the point in applying changes that no one would ever use. I could turn this bird any color I want, but why? Even black and white seems a bit redundant, but I included it anyway as one of the photographic basics. I like all of them for one reason or another, but I would probably inevitably use the original because it has the texture — and it looks like a cardinal!
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Categories: #Birds, #gallery, #Photography, Anecdote, Cardinal
SERENDIPITY: SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
I like them all (except for the B&B), but I think I like the polarized the best.
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Posterizing (which before electronics was called “solarizing”) has always been a very popular process. Back in the film and paper days, to get that effect you very quickly opened the door while you were processing a photograph (in the soup, as it were), then closed it again. You never knew if you’d get a “pleasing” effect until you finishing “souping” the print. But it was always interesting. Now we can more or less control it which makes it more useful. And usable.
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I love, love, love cardinals! I love how they hook up with each other. Their mating rituals are really cool. The female acts like a baby and the male gives her food like he’s the mommy. He also does a little dance with a twig in his mouth. I think this is to advertise his nest-building abilities. Once bonded, they are devoted to each other. I don’t know if this devotion extends beyond the Autumn. They do migrate, so it’s not impossible that they should mate for life. Other species of birds do so. Right?
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Yes and the brightest (reddest) boys usually get the girls. Birds are all about vision, so you gotta look your best if you want the lady birds to be your best pals.
They do not migrate. How long their association lasts? At least until the end of the breeding season. I think that is true of most birds for whom relationships are forged except for those birds who don’t mate (like Cuckoos and Brown-headed Cowbirds) but leave their eggs in other birds’ nests.
They will do all that season’s matings together. I don’t know if they remain “married” later. Woodpeckers do, but Cardinals are a finch — so some stay married, some don’t. I’m not sure anyone knows the answer either. The birds don’t always tell us all their secrets.
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OMG how I hate cowbirds! They don’t sing. They squawk. And their habit of depositing their eggs in others’ nests is really upsetting. Often they are bigger than the other chicks in the nest, so they hog all the food. Grrrr!
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They are the only birds that finally forced me to take down the feeders until they went away. They had taken over not only the nests, but all the feeders. So far, it as been a year and they haven’t come back. I’m sure they will, eventually, but so far, so good.
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Close to 25 years ago, we had this incredibly obnoxious cowbird in our backyard. It was so loud and I know that it was terrorizing the other birds on our property. I finally got a pellet gun and started shooting at it. That was a major fail. I’m usually a pretty aim, but that critter outsmarted me without even trying.
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It probably had been shot at before. It had gotten plenty of practice.
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No kidding! Worst bird ever! Do cuckoo’s have a song?
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I don’t know. We don’t get cuckoos around here, but brown-headed cowbirds have a very sweet song in the spring when they are mating. After that, it’s mostly squawking for early in the season, they sound lovely.
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I think we may have a different breed of cowbird here. They never sing. They only squawk and it’s an ugly sound. Is there more than one kind of cowbird? So many questions! I’ll research it and get back to you. ✌️
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I found this. They don’t say anything about the singing, but they do say that there are 5 different kinds, all of them “parasitic egg layers.” Some of them even remove the competing chicks from the nest! There are about 200 different species of bird that they will victimize with this behavior, to the detriment of 140 species that they exploit. Apparently there are two kinds of oriole that they like to target. Despicable creatures. If I were a High Judge in the Avian Supreme Court, I would order their immediate execution! LOL
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Here they target finches who always know those aren’t their own eggs, probably because they are huge compared to finch eggs. Our local ones don’t try to kill the other babies — not because they are nice but because the parents will abandon the nest.
I know WHY the brown-heads do it, but I have no idea why other birds behave that way. The cowbirds used to follow buffalo herds and never were in the same place for any length of time, so they just left the eggs and moved on. Now, of course, there are no herds and they hang around and become pests. But they had a reason — way back when. At least they aren’t around this year or last! That’s a relief.
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We don’t get “bright red” anythings around here.
Just some of those blue things.
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Blue is a great color too. For a while I was bewailing the lack of blue birds until the Bluebirds, Blue Jays, and Grackles all showed up.
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He’s like a small red ball with a beak.
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They look like the original “Angry Birds.”
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Yes, the big red with bushy eyebrows 😆
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I bet they used a cardinal to draw that cartoon. That resemblance can’t be a coincidence.
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Very right.
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