A Little Red Dot of Surprise

I had walked out into the woods behind my house today to see if any mushrooms had sprouted up after the rain we've been having. I found a couple interesting ones, but as I was heading back to the house a flash of red caught my eyes as it flew into a tree nearby. I stopped waiting to see whose pretty singing accompanied the color, expecting it to be a Cardinal. But to my surprise, the bright red visitor graced me with a full view by flitting to the ground and setting out to find a tidbit or two. It was a Scarlet Tanager! And a few seconds later he was joined by his mate. Sadly, I did not have my Powershot in hand (the camera with the better zoom) but I took a shot anyway. The T3i does allow me to crop quite a bit, so you can at least see how brilliant these fellows are but it's really not a GREAT shot. So this one's for the memory banks and maybe he'll come back for another visit in the future.

[Glendq]

sure does brighten up the whole scene eh

[Kerri]

Awesome shot

[Ann H. LeFevre]

@glendq Thanks Glenq! Oh yes, the color is a show-stopper.
@kerristephens Thank you Kerri!

[aikimomm (phoebe)]

I hope he DOES come back, but you certainly don't need to downplay this shot!! What is the green mass in the upper left, a rock?! What a treat to see the tanager -- he's gorgeous.

[Allie]

Wonderful shot of this rare visitor.

[Ann H. LeFevre]

@aikimomm Thanks Phoebe! If I'd had the zoom it'd be so much closer, but I'm still glad I got this one. Yes, it's a large rock (which came out of our ground when we dug for the Bilco door to the crawl space) with some moss growing around it.

@texastrails Thanks Allie!

[Ann H. LeFevre]

@texastrails And thank you for the fav too!

[Dawn Swingle]

How exciting! I have never seen one before!

[Taffy]

Great catch!

[mzbull]

You might not think this is a "great" shot but I like the bit of red and how it stands out against the ground

[Sally Ings]

Such a gorgeous colour. What a great sighting.

[Nicole Campbell]

How luck you are to have such pretty birds visiting you

[bruni]

Another one I don't know, so it's nice to see it here. red always brightens up a picture and a pretty red bird will just do fine.

[Janiskay]

Nice find!

[Ann H. LeFevre]

@rangerxenos @taffy @mzbull @salza @nicolecampbell @bruni @janiskay

Thank you Dawn, Taffy, Mz, Sally, Nicole, Bruni and Janice! Late night tonight- early morning tomorrow- all photography related! I'll be back Friday afternoon to check out your shots!