A cardinal with escape fantasies,
vehicle for brave new points of view,
a laid-back aerialist dissolving in
flickering shades of red.
 

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Cardinal | Cardinalis cardinalis

She never gives much away,
eyes nearly impossible to read,
electric hues a retina-buzzing distraction.
 

A marvel of bright sunlight,
deep shadow, and unexpected romance.
 

A Northern Cardinal seems to mock the shackles of winter’s tether.
 

Her crimson cries are a sonic portal to spring.
 

She looked like a very special kind of dynamite,
neatly wrapped in crimson and feathers.
 

A female cardinal bewitches with her crimson charms.
 

        A winter argument for a spring holiday weekend, the cries of new disagreements still ricochet through my backyard.

        Any translations from the original avian welcome.

Too much rain, I’m springing forward to better weather along with this fierce female cardinal, showcasing her bedraggled comb.

The Cardinals kick off their attack with a rush against a steel-eyed Sparrow defender.

We have a family of cardinals living nearby, but don’t see them often enough. They are mostly ground-feeders.

Here a young female gets a little more assertive.

Here she is again, showing off her feathers.

Earlier a sonnet, and now a nervy cardinal races toward the weekend.
 
See a spring pause.
 

From reader and correspondent Timothy Ladd, a sonnet.

——— Wild Notes ———

The charming cardinal is our year-round friend,
Warbling wild notes unnoticed in the pines,
While other gaudy plumes will have us spend
Our greater powers on their rarer signs.
Content yourselves with easy arcs of swallows,
Twittering till the shallow end of day.
The jay will startle. Every starling follows
Raucously its twin. House sparrows say
Their feeble thoughts in hordes so loud
It drives the finch away. And we, bereft,
Hear feathers of a nightingale in cloud
Overhead, find down an eagle must have left,
And disregard all glory we have heard
Come streaming from that scarlet bird.

A nice female cardinal showing off her feather coloring. I don’t see her mate very often.

I’ve taken some other images of her I’ll be posting in the future.