Watching Cardinal Rearings—Part 1

There’s something special about cardinals that allows me to follow the local pair and observe the rearing and dispersion of their youngsters each year. It’s because—unlike other birds—I can distinguish cardinal individuals. The father is bright red, year round. The mother is a dull red, with lots of brown mixed in. There’s no confusing them! They are also the only bird around here for which I can distinguish mature from young. For most songbirds, the kids—by the time they’ve left the nest—are about the size of their parents and their coloring is virtually identical. Cardinal youngsters may look a lot like their mom, but can easily be distinguished from her by their gray bill. Mom’s (and dad’s) is a bright yellow-orange.

There’s one final special quality of our cardinals: they are the sole pair here, year after year. They remain monogamous and dad will not allow any other male cardinal to set up shop within his fiefdom. We often see other species of birds in small flocks, so telling one pair from another in that bunch is well beyond my current observational skills.

These unique qualities of the cardinal help me keep tabs on the local family. It’s a wonderful gift to be able to get to know the individuals of this crew—and not have to feel that all cardinals look alike. What helped me even more this year is that I finally discovered the location of their nest, so I could monitor mom incubating her eggs and then watch both parents feed the little ones.

All year round the cardinal parents are daily clients at the bird feeder. They particularly favor the big fat sunflower seeds that I keep well stocked. They are usually the first to come in the morning and the last to visit at dusk. At times in between I rarely see either one, except when the male perches on some exposed vantage point and lustily fills his domain with song. This pair has also been in residence for half a dozen years now, so their normal skittishness is beginning to fade, as they get more comfortable with our presence. (In fact, most of my watching is done from the outdoor tub, so maybe they’ve caught on that a naked human is not going to give chase.)

This year I was rewarded with being able to watch them raise three broods! This is uncommon—one to two broods are typical of cardinals. I’d like to believe that their plentiful diet of nutritious sunflower seeds makes them healthy enough to go for that third brood.

The show got off to a start in April. The pair usually come to the feeder about the same time each day, but then chomp away with little conviviality between them (sort of like human families eating TV dinners in front of the tube). They even appear to ignore each other, much as other feeder birds do. In mid April, however, cardinal mealtimes became far more congenial. They’d fly together to the feeder, but she would simply sit there, as if unable to figure out how to eat, and quietly chip at him. He would fill his bill and then affectionately sidle up to her as she opened her beak, and he’d tenderly French-kiss her, stuffing her bill with sunflower bits. They’d repeat this romantic food exchange a few times and then fly off into the dusk, wing-to-wing. How sweet! How attentive! Fade camera… Hollywood style.

A week or two later I spotted mom sitting on the nest. She was obviously incubating, as she’d leave the nest for only brief periods. Dad would fly over to her a few times a day and feed her, bill-to-bill. In early June I heard two birds peeping and squeaking and looked up to see two cardinal fledglings (those gray bills!) uncertainly balanced on twigs near the feeder. They fluttered and peeped, shaking their wings, as if working out the kinks in wing muscles that were being tested for the first time (or maybe in excited anticipation of the hoped-for meal). Dad appeared and began filling his beak and crop with sunflower seeds. Then he flew up to his babies, one of whom squawked loudly and urgently, as they do in the nest. It got fed first. Dad then flew to the other youngster and stuffed its bill. He made two or three more trips to satisfy his voracious kids.

More on brood number one next time…