Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
High-profile bird
A nest full of news about the Northern cardinal
Every schoolchild knows the red, red cardinal, but how many adults know anything about this vivid, common bird beyond its name?
Some people don’t even know its name, calling it simply a “redbird,” though there are other birds with red feathers. I suppose that most do call it a “cardinal” — a word that, appropriately, derives from the Latin for “bright red.”
Also Latin, its scientific name is “Cardinalis cardinalis.” The English translation of the Latin is also redundant, “bright red, bright red.” The bird’s color is so brilliant, ornithologists have invoked it twice.
But the correct common name, according to the American Ornithologist’s Union Checklist of North American Birds, is “Northern cardinal.” The “Northern” distinguishes it from other American cardinals, including Pyrrholoxia (scientific name Cardinalis sinuatus), which is sometimes called “Texas cardinal”; and two other birds that live in Hawaii, the red-crested cardinal and the yellow-billed cardinal.
In 2010, Birds and Blooms, the most widely distributed magazine about birds, took a poll among its readers about their favorite backyard bird. The magazine saluted the Northern cardinal as a winner because it is easily seen, with the males decked in bright
plumage year-round. It sings in every month of the year, and it comes to feeders with regularity. We like it. Seven states claim the Northern cardinal as their state bird, more than any other avian species. Those states are Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia. Arkansans chose the Northern mockingbird as the state bird, but before the Hogs were called “Razorbacks,” they were The Cardinals.
Northern cardinals live in abundance in central and eastern parts of the contiguous United States, also in Mexico, and they have been introduced into Hawaii. There is some evidence that their range is moving westward and northward.
REASONS TO LIKE CARDINALS
1. Cardinals seem to like being near people. They nest in our shrubs and live in our yards, parks and neighborhoods.
2. They are easily attracted to bird feeders, especially when sunflower seed is on the menu.
3. Unlike most other birds, the males show off their brilliant red-trimmed-in-black colors year-round, not just in mating season.
4. The female, while not as showy as the male, has a subtle pink and brown beauty that befits a lady of distinction.
5. Males and females sport a cap in the form of a tall tuft atop the head.
6. They sing a lot and have many songs, but they don’t sing loudly at night to keep us awake like those pesky mockingbirds.
7. They are abundant. Rare birds are nice to see, but — sigh — we so rarely see them.
8. Cardinals have worked out the sexes’ responsibilities in an amiable way. Females build the nests. Males raise the young. The male feeds the female tidbit treats during courtship and while she roosts on the nest.
9. Cardinals stand up for themselves. They will defend their territory from any intruder, even if that intruder is their own reflection in a window or shiny hubcap.
10. Shrugging off the need to camouflage, cardinals do not follow the pattern of most of Mother Nature’s other creatures. Flaunting their beauty, they are eye candy in any setting and make a scene worthy of a greeting card wherever snow covers a bush. And that sometimes happens in Arkansas.
REASONS TO DISLIKE CARDINALS
There are also a few reasons that people might cite for disliking cardinals, but who knows of them?
1. The males can revert to spring-like aggressive behav- iors briefly in the fall, pecking windows and making noise in the treetops.
2. They eat red berries and therefore spread poison ivy.
3. They tend to kick anything that’s not a sunflower seed out of the bird feeder. Jerry Butler is a regular contributor to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on topics related to Arkansas birds. He welcomes comments and stories at
CYCLE OF LIFE
Cardinals build their bowlshaped nests of pliable twigs, grass, leaves, rootlets and paper. They usually place them in dense tangles of thickets and vines or in the limbs of young cedars about 4 or 5 feet above the ground. They lay three or four gray-brown speckled eggs that are incubated — sat upon so they’re warm — by the female for 11 or 12 days.
While the female is sitting, the male will fetch her food. It is also while on the nest that the female does much of her singing. What else is there to do? Perhaps she is singing, “Bring me dinner.”
Cardinal nestlings are tended primarily by the male. Ten or 11 days after hatching, the young take flight. An undisturbed nesting pair of cardinals may reuse their nest, and may raise three or four broods of young a year.
The adult cardinal grows to about 8 inches in length with a wingspan up to 12 inches, and can weigh as much as 2 ounces.
Cardinals do not migrate; generally they remain in their own territory year-round and for years on end. One exception to that pattern is that young adult cardinals wander longer distances to establish a new neighborhood for themselves.
The longest such wandering episode ever documented with a banded bird was 270 miles, from Hartford, Conn., to State College, Pa.
WHAT TO EAT?
Birds with tall and thick bills, like the cardinal, have a strong jaw muscle that allows them to crack and eat seeds as their primary diet. The Audubon Encyclopedia of North American Birds indicates that, although they eat 39 varieties of weed seeds, nuts and grains, cardinals also eat 51 kinds of insects or creeping things, including ants, moths, termites, grasshoppers, cutworms and spiders.
In addition, cardinals consume 33 varieties of wild fruit, including berries from poison ivy vines.
They also eat the buds of elm trees, and they drink maple sap.
The breadth of the cardinal’s diet is one of the reasons their population remains high while many other species of birds are in decline. Cardinals, as well as all other wild creatures that have a broad diet, are less susceptible to habitat destruction and environmental disruptions that can knock out a narrow or singular food source.
For example, the endangered snail kite eats only apple snails; the extinct ivory-billed woodpecker favored primarily a specific grub.
As dietary specificity increases, survivability of a species declines.
WHOIT?
Cardinals sing all year. The most frequent song is a “whoit, whoit, whoit, whoit,” then a brief pause, then another “whoit, whoit, whoit, whoit.”
The male song is more ardent and vociferous in breeding season. Among many songbirds, only the males sing, but the female cardinal rivals her mate in richness of musical performance.
They can also be identified by the soft “tsip” call they frequently give while feeding or as a signal to their mate as to their whereabouts.
RISKY YOUTH
The life span of wild birds is difficult to determine. Survival rates for young birds of all kinds is low — predators seek them out.
Predation of songbird nests by domestic cats is high in urban areas. Cardinal nests are also susceptible to cowbirds, which lay their eggs among the cardinal eggs. The vigorous cowbird chicks root the baby cardinals out of the nest, and the unsuspecting cardinal parents provide foster care for the cowbird at the expense of their own offspring’s lives. It’s not easy being red. Raccoons, bobcats and hawks also rob nests. In June, a birdwatcher walking in a Little Rock park spotted a king snake that had invaded a cardinal’s nest and apparently eaten either the eggs or the nestlings.
The serpent was curled up in the nest and was being harassed by the adult cardinals. A few avian neighbors (chickadees and a mockingbird) joined the cardinal parents in an attempt to drive the snake away.
The birds fought with tenacity, but the snake remained.
Once a bird reaches maturity, however, chances for a normal life span increase. Life expectancy for an adult Northern cardinal in the wild is estimated at eight years, but the potential for a much longer life exists.
A fledgling female cardinal that was banded in Fairfax, Va., was trapped 13 years and 8 months later and returned into the wild.
Another cardinal in Atlanta ( named “Ripley,” I’d guess) lived as a house pet for 28 1⁄2 years, from 1933 to 1961. It is not unusual for birds in captivity to outlive their wild counterparts.