It is not often that we get a male Northern Cardinal on our deck. They are such amazing birds and I have enjoyed every one I have ever seen. This morning, under cloudy skies, I was messing around with my new (to me) Tamron 150-500 zoom on the Sony a7CR camera as the birds were active at the feeders and I had the deck door already open when this one showed up. What are the chances? God is good! I had the camera and lens on my light weight travel tripod…just as an experiment, still counting on the image stabilization to do what the tripod cannot on its spindly own. And the Cardinal stayed put for long enough for me to get a series of portraits, displaying its (admittedly limited) range of character. It is never a happy looking bird. As above, Sony a7CR. Tamron 150-500 at 500mm. Program mode with custom bird and wildlife modifications. Processed in Photomator. One of the advantages of the 61mm sensor on the a7CR is that you can really crop in for head shots, and still have 6 mp left. 🙂