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I pass this on just in case anyone is tempted to jump to conclusions, as I did yesterday. Yesterday morning I had a visit from a brilliant male Cardinal, my first one since moving here last summer. Going out for a walk a little later I heard it singing in the distance, and tracked it down to the top of a tree in the woods at the end of our subdivision. I managed to get a number of digital shots from different angles, three of which were clearly better than the others. Enlarging, cropping and sharpening the first of those, I was amazed to see that the bird was clearly carrying a small twig - it must be nesting! I hadn't noticed anything when I was watching it before I brought up my camera, but I had only had my small glasses with me at the time. The same thing showed up on the next two photos - we had a breeding bird! It was only when I was finishing off the third photo that doubts struck - the bird had its beak wide open and was clearly singing it's heart out. How could it be carrying something at the same time? I then enlarged up the critical parts of the poorer photos, taken from different angles, and could clearly see the branch and the bird as separate items. So, Hantsport doesn't have a breeding Cardinal after all, not yet anyway! It's one of those things that can make you feel quite foolish. But at least I now know where to look for this bird and my habit of shooting lots of images from several locations seems to be a good thing. Let's hope it actually starts to nest soon. Maybe this will be useful to someone, John Belbin Hantsport
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