The Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) brightens up cold winter days with visits to backyard feeders. In Kentucky, the widely used common name for this native songbird is “Redbird.”
Coloration is distinctive. Both sexes sport red crests on their heads, and masks on their faces — black for the male, and gray for the female. The males’ feathers are a crimson red, while the females’ feathers are a reddish olive.
Both sexes have cone-shaped red beaks. Their legs and feet are thin and lack feathers. A holiday favorite, a pair of Cardinals are a living Christmas card when perched on icy or snow-covered branches.
Both genders of Cardinals sing clear, whistled song patterns. Some common phrases sound like: “what-cheer, cheer, cheer; purty-purty-purty-purty or sweet-sweet-sweet-sweet.”
A holiday favorite, a pair of Cardinals are a living Christmas card when perched on icy or snow-covered branches. Both sexes of Cardinals sing clear, whistled song patterns. Some common calls sound like: “what-cheer, cheer, cheer; purty-purty-purty-purty or sweet-sweet-sweet-sweet.” (Photo Provided)
The songs of Northern Cardinals vary regionally.
The male Cardinal warns of danger with a distinctive alarm call of short metallic chirps. This call is also used by mated pairs to locate each other at dusk, as visibility wanes.
Females sing mainly in the spring before the start of nesting.
Because of its beautiful coloration and melodic singing, the Northern Cardinal was once prized as a pet. But its sale as a cage bird was banned in the U.S. with passage of the Migratory Bird Treat Act of 1918.
In 1926 the Kentucky General Assembly designated the Northern Cardinal as Kentucky’s state bird. In fact, the Northern Cardinal is the state bird of seven states, five that adjoin Kentucky — Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia.
The Cardinal is also the mascot of many college and university sports teams, most notably, the University of Louisville in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
In professional sports there’s the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League of Major League Baseball, and the Arizona Cardinals in the National Football Conference of the National Football League.
Range and Distribution
The range of the Northern Cardinal extends from southeastern Canada, through the eastern United States from Maine to Texas, extreme southern Arizona and New Mexico, and southward through Mexico to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, northern Guatemala and northern Belize. There are 19 subspecies.
Cardinals are rare in California, and populations were established due to introductions in Hawaii and Bermuda.
In Kentucky, the Northern Cardinal is found in city parks, residential areas, rural subdivisions, and farms with a mix of timber, brush and open land. Its abundance is linked to early successional habitat — thick cover at the edge of forests, overgrown fencerows, and old fields.
In the Kentucky Breeding Bird Atlas, author Brainard Palmer-Ball Jr. wrote that the Northern Cardinal is “considerably less numerous only in extensively cleared and predominately forested areas.”
There is evidence to suggest that in 18th century Kentucky, with its vast forests, Northern Cardinal numbers were not a high as today. “It is likely that human alteration of the landscape has resulted in an overall increase in their abundance,” wrote Palmer-Ball Jr.
A mid-sized songbird, the Northern Cardinal is 8 to 9 inches tall, with a wingspan of about 10 to 12 inches. Adults weigh about 2 1/2 ounces, and typically males are slightly larger than females.
Winter feeding by birding enthusiasts is thought to be a factor in the Northern Cardinal’s range expansion northward.
Food Habits
The Northern Cardinal eats mostly seeds, but also insects and berries. Its diet varies seasonally — feeding on many insects, including beetles, grasshoppers, caterpillars, ants and flies, also spiders, centipedes, and small snails.
Vegetable matter consumed includes: seeds of weeds and grasses, waste grain (oats, corn, safflower seeds, and sunflower seeds), leaf buds, flowers, and many berries and wild fruits.
The Northern Cardinal prefers to feed on the ground, finding food while hopping through trees and shrubbery. A favorite backyard meal is black oil sunflower seeds, preferably piled on a low perch, or in a large hanging feeder.
Each winter there’s a battle between the red and the blue, as the Northern Cardinal fights for food and status with the Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata), a notorious bully and seed hog.
Courtship and Nesting
Beginning in March, the male Cardinal marks his territory with song, and aggressively chases off intruding males. Highly territorial, males often mistake their own image on glass doors, picture windows, and other reflective surfaces as an invading male, and will fight the reflection relentlessly, to the annoyance of homeowners.
Pairs mate for life and stay together year-round. Mated pairs raise their heads high, sway back and forth while singing softly before nesting. During courtship they may also participate in a bonding behavior where the male collects food and brings it to the female, feeding her beak-to-beak.
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In Kentucky, nesting begins in April, and peaks in late April to early May. Late nesting is common through July. Cardinal nests are usually well hidden in dense shrubs, vines, or low trees, usually placed 3-to-10 feet above the ground.
The female builds the nest, an open cup made of twigs, weeds, grass, bark strips, leaves, and rootlets, lined with fine grass or hair.
A clutch of three to four eggs is usually laid. The eggs are white, with a tint of green, blue or brown, and are marked with lavender, gray, or brown blotches.
Incubation takes 12 to 13 days. Young are fed almost exclusively insects. Fledging occurs 9 to 11 days after hatching.
Young birds, both male and female, show coloring similar to the adult female until the fall, when they molt and grow adult feathers.
The male cares for and feeds fledglings as the female incubates the next clutch of eggs. Typically a pair raises two to three broods a year.
Northern Cardinals have a high reproductive rate and can live for several years in the wild, but the high mortality of juveniles lowers the average lifespan to about a year. They are preyed upon by falcons, hawks, and owls. In the nest, eggs and young are eaten by snakes, squirrels, raccoons, and feral cats.
Art Lander Jr. is outdoors editor for NKyTribune and KyForward. He is a native Kentuckian, a graduate of Western Kentucky University and a life-long hunter, angler, gardener and nature enthusiast. He has worked as a newspaper columnist, magazine journalist and author and is a former staff writer for Kentucky Afield Magazine, editor of the annual Kentucky Hunting & Trapping Guide and Kentucky Spring Hunting Guide, and co-writer of the Kentucky Afield Outdoors newspaper column.
