• @OnceADream
      15•9 months ago

      Male cardinals are red. Lady cardinals are more brown-reddish. :)

      • @MooseLad
        2•9 months ago

        I think the nature cam also takes saturated photos, making it appear brighter and more yellow than it really is.

        • @[email protected]
          3•9 months ago

          Yeah I think the colors were throwing me off. It looks almost green-yellow in this picture.

          Although I don’t see a black cap like this on any cardinals male or female. But I can’t think of what else it would be.

          • CrimeDadOPEnglish
            2•9 months ago

            Yeah that black cap is interesting. Not sure what’s going on with that.

            • @[email protected]
              2•9 months ago

              It’s a shadow. You can see it on the beak a little bit. It’s more noticeable due to the extremely saturated colors.

              • CrimeDadOPEnglish
                1•9 months ago

                Someone else remarked about the color saturation. I did a little bit of adjusting in Google Photos, including moving the HDR slider to 50%. Is that a bad thing? I like how it helps bring out the details.

            • rhythmisaprancer
              1•9 months ago

              Any chance you can share these pics with a local wildlife center? This bird has a lot going on, we’re all curious haha

              • CrimeDadOPEnglish
                3•9 months ago

                Yeah, maybe. As for the cap, she visited again when the sun was at a different angle and her cap feathers aren’t black. They’re reddish brown. Between the lighting and the grime from her wound it just looked black.

                • rhythmisaprancer
                  2•9 months ago

                  Ya, the images showing her eye definitely don’t show the cap being as prominent. But that eye, specialists might be curious. I am most certainly not a specialist 🙂 essentially, it was folks like you that caught on to that with finches in thr first place! I’ll stop bugging you about it haha

    • CrimeDadOPEnglish
      1•9 months ago

      Juveniles and adult females are brownish. Adult males are bright red.

  • rhythmisaprancer
    2•9 months ago

    That’s an interesting black cap! I wonder of cardinals are susceptible to that house finch blindness pathogen?

    • CrimeDadOPEnglish
      1•9 months ago

      Yikes! I had no idea that that was a thing.