Male Cardinal "Shadow Puppet" Sings His Heart Out for Spring

Male Cardinal singing the Bold Spring Call From the Highest Tree

Cardinals are often one of the last backyard birds to turn in for the night. You can often hear them chirping at the feeder right after the sun goes down and its almost too dark to see. This male Northern Cardinal was singing his heart out at sunset and I wanted to record his strong calls, one of my favorite of the backyard bird world. Ordinarily this would be poor lighting for video or film as the bird will obviously not be clearly seen. But here I was lucky to capture the bird in perfect profile with the sun now below the horizon giving a "shadow puppet" effect and perfectly showing the movement of its beak to form the amazing calls. Keep your camera handy  every day in the backyard is an adventure.