The Northern Cardinal

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A Beautiful Bird Dressed in Red

The Northern Cardinal is one of the most popular birds in the United States. It is one of the first birds a child learns to recognize and most adults, birders and non-birders alike recognize it on sight. Its bright red coloring is distinctive.

The Cardinal is a songbird, but unlike many songbirds, both the male and female can be heard singing. They chirp and sing throughout the year rather than just in the spring.

They are year-round residents here in South Carolina and regular visitors to my birdfeeder. They are a pleasure to watch and to feed.

Northern

Hiding in the Trees 

Description

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.

Great Balance

Cardinals are Regular Visitors to My Backyard Bird Feeder 

My Canon Rebel

Canon EOS Rebel T2i 18 MP CMOS APS-C Sensor DIGIC 4 Image Processor Full-HD Movie Mode Digital SLR Camera with 3.0-inch LCD and and EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens

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I have used a simple point and shoot camera for years. They're great for taking pictures at family gatherings and picnics, but when it came to photographing wildlife, I was always disappointed with the results. I couldn't get a close-up without compromising the quality of the picture. I started researching cameras and came up with the Canon Rebel. It's a step above the POINT and SHOOT but not so complicated that it ends up setting on the shelf.

The Cardinal was named after the red robe and hats worn by Roman Catholic Cardinals.

Diet

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.

A Good Birdfeeder Always Attracts the Cardinals

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Range and Habitat

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.

Northern Cardinal

Northern Cardinal - HD Mini-Documentary
by AgileHProductions | video info

139 ratings | 64,004 views
automatically generated by YouTube

The male Cardinal is an aggressive defender of his territory. If he sees his reflection in a glass surface, it will spend hours fighting the imaginary intruder.

Mating and Nesting Habits

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.

Voice

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

by Lang Elliot



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.

Singing

Shall I Sing For You? 

Attracting Birds to Your Backyard

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Peterson's Field Guide to Birds

Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America (Peterson Field Guides)

Amazon Price: $10.55 (as of 05/24/2012)Buy Now

An absolute must have for anyone with a birdfeeder and an interest in watching the birds.

America's 100 Most Wanted Birds

America's 100 Most Wanted Birds

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If you want to see a gyrfalcon or a fork-tailed flycatcher, this resource might be your best help in spotting them. Mostly for serious birders intent on adding species to their life lists, America's 100 Most Wanted Birds provides detailed strategies for locating 100 of the most uncommon-to-rare bird species in the United States.

Do the Cardinals visit your birdfeeder?

  • Didge May 1, 2012 @ 12:04 am | delete
    very cool . . .
  • BLemley Mar 6, 2012 @ 9:35 am | delete
    Yes! Love the cardinals! They're very prevalent around our area, easy to attract and oh so pretty, as your pictures depict! Lovely lens, great info! B : )
  • Tipi Jan 14, 2012 @ 8:56 pm | delete
    My goodness the Cardinals are beautiful red birds. When I see one of them, I just stop and get a better look.
  • Caldeen Sep 5, 2010 @ 8:38 pm | delete
    I have an odd one, my male cardinal lost his top notch. It looks like he was scalped. Has anyone else ever seen this?
    Some of his other feathers are messed up also.
  • JeffDeRin NJ Jul 23, 2010 @ 10:31 am | delete
    A northtern cardinal I conisdered my friend has been visiting our feeder for years. We nicknamed him Baldric, because every summer he would lose the feathers atop his head and without his crest would look "bald." But by fall, they'd always grow back. He was a regular daily visitor for many and a real character. He defended my backyard as his domain and over the years I've watched him and his mate ("Mrs. B.") raise dozens of broods of young cardinals. A few days ago, on July 20, 2010, old Badric showed up and he was obviously distressed. He was weak and couldn't eat. I surmised pretty quickly that my old friend was probably dying and In fact he was. All I could do was try to make him comfortable (with food, water and shade) and protect him from squirrels and other predators. In a couple of hours old Baldric has passed away. It broke my heart to see this happen but I felt deeply honored that my old friend came to spend his last hours with me. We buried Baldric that night in a spot near his favorite part of the garden, a place where I often saw him. I will miss this wonderful bird, who was a gift from nature, more than you can know. The backyard is still full of birds but it sure feels empty.

    The writer Sam Keen, in his book "Sightings: Extraordinary Encounters with Ordinary Birds," wrote the following little verse about the Cardinal. These were the words we said over Baldric when we laid him to rest...

    the cardinal is still crimson,
    as the blood of life,
    and stronger than death.

    R.I.P. Baldric
    ????-July 20, 2010
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About the Author

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Songbird Coloring Pages

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Bird Watcher's Digest

Bird Watchers Digest

Amazon Price: $16.99 (as of 05/24/2012)Buy Now



Keep current with what's happening in the birding world. Bird Watcher's Digest offers great articles and pictures, as well as information on conservation efforts and research. I receive several birding magazines each month but its Bird Watchers that has me dropping everything to sit down and read.

6 issues/12 months

Resources used to build this page

Dunn, J.L. & Alderfer, J., Editors. 2006. National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, Fifth Edition. National Geographic Society.

Peterson, T.P. & Peterson, V.M. 2002. Birds of Eastern and Central North America, Fifth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, N.Y.

Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology
Seattle Audubon Society
Northern Cardinal- Cardinalis cardinalis, Nature Works
The Northern Cardinal, Chipper Woods Observatory

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ElizabethJeanAllen

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