Most days if I go birding in my own yard, it’s in the morning with a large cup of coffee at my side. That tends to be when the birds are most active, and certainly when they seem most hungry. One evening when I got home from work, we were having a nice cool breeze blowing gently through the tree branches, and I didn’t feel like going inside. Instead, I grabbed my camera and went out into the woods. There wasn’t a lot of bird activity since it was getting close to roosting time, but my ever present northern cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis) are always hopeful that extra treats might be laid out, so I had a few visitors. As the light rapidly faded, Poppa showed up to check things out and I got a couple of images of him almost hidden in the long evening shadows. I don’t generally think about such a brightly colorful bird fading into the darkness of shadows, so I really rather liked these shots. Definitely something a little different from what I see during the morning.