We got a new digital camera yesterday. I’m excited – and easily amused. After work today, I went out and took some pictures.

I took this picture of a cardinal in a tree.

I could take a shot like that with my old camera. With luck, I’d see a red spot in a green tree. However, if I zoom and crop this very same picture, I get this reasonable picture of a cardinal.

If I’d zoomed with the old camera, you’d see pixels.

I also got this picture – it’s not great, but it is interesting.

Cardinals are one of my childhood birds, but they’re not present in the Pacific Northwest. We saw over 75 species of birds on or from our property in Oregon, but no Cardinals. We’ve been seeing them for a couple of weeks around the apartment complex which is a real treat. It’s probably been 20 years since I’ve seen a cardinal – or at least 20 years since I took the time to notice one.

[My apologies, but I have had to block comments on this entry again due to severe comment spam. If you can read this, I know you’re legitimate, so please post your comments on another entry.]