Comment from alaskapat
Oh my goodness ! She is all puffed up to keep warm! This is a beautiful capture of this lovely lady in the snow! Nice focus, the image is clear, exposure is well managed, colors and tones and tonal variations are natural, Good white snow! nice detail in her feathers, face and beak, good eye contact complete with a little catch light ! Well composed and presented! This is a pleasure to view! Best wishes to you in the contest!

 Comment Written 20-Jan-2019

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reply by the author on 20-Jan-2019

Many thanks for your wonderful review and for bestowing this image with an extra star,I am extremely honored! If someone would have told me I would be entering a photo in the cardinal contest a few days ago I would have thought they were crazy-LOL!

reply by alaskapat on 20-Jan-2019

Absolutely my pleasure! This is beautiful! Good luck to you! I updated my review too and corrected the type o

reply by the author on 20-Jan-2019

We had a female cardinal that flew in to the window of our back garage door a little while ago,I sat out on the porch,cupping her in my hands,hoping she?d recover and fly off before it got dark,but she stayed there,puffed up against the cold,with her eyes half shut.We finally put her in one of my mesh enclosures that I rear caterpillars in and brought her inside to keep her warm,figuring she would pass away during the night. Much to my surprise and happiness,she was chirping and fluttering around in the morning,and flew off once I took the enclosure outside and released her.We have several male and female cardinals around,and there is no way to be sure,but perhaps she stopped by long enough to say ?Thank You? :)

reply by alaskapat on 20-Jan-2019

Oh my ! What an incredible story and I am so happy she survived and yes! I like to think that she cane back to say thank you and let you know that she was okay! Wow!