Female Cardinal in Birch Tree
 

This female cardinal was sitting in a birch tree which was a great background for the shot.

click on photo to enlarge.

Ron, your photos are the best. I love looking at them.

I believe it's a immature male.

I can relate.

thanks

I think she's prettier than the male even though she's not red. Great photo!

I love this. There's so much to look at in here. Also the little bits of sun make the photo really interesting to me.

I have never seen a female cardinal this colorful. We have dozens visit our feeder daily. Usually a darker color.

Read post 3. It's apparently a young male.

Beautiful...thanks for sharing!

:ho: I think of you as the eyes of TOTV, bringing us beautiful nature pictures.

Beautiful pic. We see very few Cardinals here; they were everywhere where we lived north of KC.

Beautifully done, OP. Keep up the outstanding work. Whenever I see your name on a post I have to check it out.

Thank you everyone.

It is a wonderful photo in so many ways.

This female cardinal is a beauty with her lovely, understated red crest and beak, perfectly accessorized by her tail color and the accent on her wings. (And she looks like she knows it, too.)

I think you captured a real beauty queen. I bet she thought you were one of the paparazzi.

When I saw the little bit of debate here about whether this was a young male, I had to look it up.

For those of you who might be interested in learning about birds, I am linking here to the cardinal entry from the Cornell website. I learned about this site from a friend in TV. You can see pictures of the male and female and if you click on the Life History tab, there you will find lots of information. I just learned that the female cardinal is one of the few female birds that can sing, and she can outsing her mate. So anyway, here's the link....

Northern Cardinal, Identification, All About Birds - Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Thank you, alemorkam.