Spotting

The photo looks like you're using digital zoom - zooms in artificially using software, giving the photos a very pixelated look. If you have the option to turn off digital zoom and rely only on optical zoom (lens only), your photos will be a lot better and easier to identify. Even if the image is really small, it will be better quality than when using Digital zoom.

The bird above is a male Northern Cardinal. The females are not as robust or as red - their bodies are more of a taupe color with red on the wings. They also lack the strong black mask on the males.