We're past epiphany now, on to the year!

In working on the 12 Days of Christmas, there were a few duds. One has already gone under the fawcet, alas there was no hope for it. This:

Was an attempt at Cardinals. Since there are no naturally occurring Cardinals around here, the models were pulled from photos, but no personal experience. Somehow they came out cartoon-y. Since the paper is already been painted, it's one of those to go back to and try different techniques and ideas to either make them look more real or, if worst comes to worst, they will find themselves hiding behind a heavy snow storm to disguise their oddities.
These birds fascinate me, how many bright red birds are there in nature? From what I can find, these are a true American native species. I remember in England the ladies with which I lived found them beautiful and interesting. I couldn't tell them as much as they wanted to know since I'd only seen pictures. I told them they were crested like Blue Jays, (blank stare), then I learned that the Blue Jays in England aren't crested. So much for my being a source of information. I had to tell them that the nearest I'd ever lived to territory with Cardinals was about 1500 miles. Blank Stare, Ok, the distance from London to Moscow. That worked. There is a whole different sense of distance for the English. Like when I asked if a particular city in the country was in the same time zone. It goes both ways.