The Northern Cardinal

The Northern Cardinal is a moderately sized bird measuring 8 to 8 ½ inches long. The male is a bright red bird with a pointed crest on the top of his head and a long tail. The female is grayish-brown in color with only her crest, wings, and tail sporting the signature red. Both the male and female's conical bill is bright red and both have a small black mask on their faces. The juveniles are similar to the female in color, but have a darker bill and crest.

The Northern Cardinal's food consists of insects, spiders, fruits, berries, and seeds. They are frequent visitors to backyard feeders. The ideal Cardinal bird feeder is the hopper style feeder filled with black-oil sunflower seeds. They tend to be territorial so you may want to place a birdfeeder in both the front and backyard. A visual barrier between the birdfeeders cuts down the squabbling.

The Northern Cardinal is a year-round resident of eastern and central North America. Their range has expanded since the 1800's but they are still a rare sight in the west and north-western part of the country.

During courtship the male Northern Cardinal will select a seed, hop over to the female, and offer it to her. Their beaks touch briefly when she accepts the offering. This is referred to as mate feeding and continues throughout the breeding season.

The female Northern Cardinal builds its nest in dense shrubbery or in small trees. The nests are usually placed several feet off the ground and are built with twigs, strips of bark, leaves, and roots. If there are scraps of paper floating around, the female Cardinal will make use of it. Once the basic structure is built, she lines it with grass, hair and soft vines.

Once the nest is built, the female Cardinal lays 2 to 5 white colored eggs with light brown speckles. She incubates the eggs alone while the male gathers food for both of them and guards their territory.

Pairs of Northern Cardinals usually stay together until one dies. At that point the surviving mate will look for another partner.

Both the male and female Northern Cardinals are accomplished songsters and can be heard any time of the year rather than just in the spring. The female will often sing from the nest and the pair share song phrases. Listen carefully and you may hear the Cardinal's slow easy trill- cheer, cheer, twee twee weet, er-dee, er-dee, er-dee...

Listen to the song of the Northern Cardinal: Sound Byte: Northern Cardinal, National Park Service

Common Birds and Their Songs (Book and Audio CD)

This book-audio package provides a unique introduction to fifty of the most familiar birds of North America and the songs they sing. Common Birds and Their Songs will be valuable to anyone interested in birds, from beginner to expert. It's the perfect gift for any birder - or anyone with a bird feeder.