At the end of January, I heard a northern cardinal sing. Birdy, birdy, birdy. What cheer, cheer, cheer. A crimson-red male sat at the top of the tree and sent out his advertisement to a nearby female.
I wait every winter for the first song of the cardinal to pierce the neighborhood with its foreshadowing of spring. It always obliges, and sometimes I think the best time to hear a cardinal sing is not on a hot summer day, but in winter.
The best time to see a cardinal at its brightest is also in winter. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, male cardinals reach their peak of brilliance in the middle of winter. Their feathers glow bright red against a dreary background.
This phenomenon has to do with their molting regime. As with other bird species, the northern cardinal molts its feathers and grows new ones in late summer and early fall.
Those who feed birds may notice a cardinal in the fall at their feeding station that appears bald. That’s because some cardinals molt their head feathers at the same time. That species certainly isn’t very dapper that time of year.
We see the cardinal almost back to his own gorgeous self in late autumn and early winter. Still, some of those new feathers can be tipped with gray. As the grayness on the feather tips wears off, the cardinal attains his most beautiful red plumage right smack in the middle of winter.
Take a look at a male cardinal this time of year. You’ll see that bright red all over his body, including the tail and the crest. His orange-red bill is set off by a jet-black mask and throat.
The female, though more subtly colored, is also lovely to look at in winter. One snowy morning, I gazed at a female cardinal drinking some snow from the shrubs. Though she was overall colored light brown, she showed at least five different shades of red, from the darkest red on her cheek just below her eye.
I also noticed some pinkish red under her belly, some red in her wings and just a spattering of red at the end of her crest. She also had a reddish-orange bill.
The red color of the cardinal likely has to do with how they metabolize the berries they eat to produce red pigments. Studies show the reddest males find the best territories for nesting and tend to produce the most offspring. Occasionally, a genetic mutation occurs in a cardinal, turning its feathers yellow instead of red.
In mid-winter, the male and female, now in their most brilliant attire, engage in courtship feeding. The male plucks a sunflower seed out of the feeder and offers it to the female, who accepts it quickly. By March, the females are also singing, an unusual trait in many bird species.
The song is likely another courtship tactic, and as February eases into March and April, you may hear more cardinal songs than ever, including male and female singing duets, responding back and forth to one another’s vocalizations.
The female builds an open-cup nest of twigs, bark shreds, grass and rootlets in a dense shrub, thicket or vine tangle, or low in a conifer. She lays three to four greenish-white eggs and incubates them for about 12 days. The young leave the nest a week or more after hatching. They look a lot like a female, but with a dark bill and brownish chest.
Northern cardinals may seem to be one of the most common bird species in your neighborhood, but they were considered rare in northern Illinois in 1900. As the suburbs grew and more folks began feeding birds, the northern cardinal, a non-migratory bird, expanded its range.
Its short, conical beak is perfect for cracking open seeds and berries, which can be found in the wild in winter in the northern part of the United States. Now this species lives as far north as southeast Canada, and may be expanding even farther north due to global climate change.
This is the time of year to get to know the cardinals in your neighborhood, to watch their behaviors at feeders, to listen to their duets and marvel at their brilliant crimson colors only found in nature.
Also, consider planting a native shrub that produces berries the cardinals will eat in fall and winter. They’re more likely to get good nutrition from native, rather than non-native plants.
Sheryl DeVore has worked as a full-time and freelance reporter, editor, and photographer for the Chicago Tribune and its subsidiaries. She’s the author of several books on nature and the environment. Send story ideas and thoughts to sheryldevorewriter@gmail.com.