tags: Northern Cardinal, Cardinalis cardinalis, birds, nature, Image of the Day
[Mystery bird] Male Northern Cardinal, Cardinalis cardinalis, photographed at 40 Acre Lake, Brazos Bend State Park, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 19 March 2007 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/125s f/8.0 at 500.0mm iso400.
Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.
Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:
This bird is pretty much "all field mark," to lift a phrase Roger Tory Peterson first applied to the Bald Eagle. Red, crested, and heavy-billed, a male Northern Cardinal is hard to mistake for anything else. It's instructive to note, though, that even if we saw this bird in shade, or at a distance, or fleetingly in flight, the same structural characters that identify the less colorful female apply: it's long-tailed, long-crested, and thick-billed. What other marks can you identify that are independent of color? Sibley's Birding Basics, a book I cannot recommend highly enough, uses Northern Cardinal and Summer Tanager -- similar enough in color -- to point out the importance of going beyond the old Petersonian method to learn the birds as birds rather than as mere assemblages of "field marks." Try it yourself!
- Log in to post comments
The all red color + the crest = northern cardinal
Perfect bird for Christmas. :-)
Why, John? Because it tastes better than chicken?
Question: In Pittsburgh, PA, the wings on our local cardinals appear to have much more blue (possibly violet factor assuming the genetics are in any way similar to lovebirds and budgies).
Is this a normal species-wide variation or something else?
Thanks in advance!
Male Northern Cardinal. All red with black mask, conical seed-cracking beak. Crest. Frequent visitor to my birdfeeder back when I lived in upstate NY. Nancyjane
Notice that in older field books The Northern is not differentiated between male Southwest and the Eastern as it is in Sibley's. The amount of black in the face mask above the beak and the location would indicate an Eastern. The length of the crest, another indicator, is not readily assessable.
Cardinal nest update - EMPTY! No squatters either...seems they have all moved on near a month ago. Will be interesting to see who returns. ~ Diane in Ohio :o)