This is a female Cardinal! I took this one last winter. You can see the snowflakes on her. I feed the birds year round. I feed them sunflower seed and mixed bird seed. The Cardinals especially like the sunflower seed along with a lot of other birds. I have squirrels that come to eat too! If you look out there at night you may see a raccoon or a deer. I usually always have to put feed out first thing in the morning. I have an old metal pan that I carry the feed to the feeder and I will hit it oh the feeder causing a loud bang. The birds know what that means. They are flying in before I get back to the house. I consider them my friends. This is a close view so I called it close friend. I am using an Olympus E3 camera with a 70-300mm lens 750/sec f5.6