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Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis)

Cardinalis cardinalis

Related Shows

Female Northern Cardinal with no tail. She is perched on a branch, with a few snowflakes falling down past her.

Having Your Tail Scared Off

June 17, 2022 When a hawk is about to capture a songbird, the songbird has one last trick: a fright molt. It’s when a bird loses feathers due to sudden stress. This usually involves feathers near the tail or rump, where they’re most likely to be attacked as they flee. It can be a saving grace when the
A Northern Cardinal showing male plumage coloration on its right side, female plumage coloration on its left side.

A Cardinal That's Half Male, Half Female

April 19, 2022 In Texas, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, people have reported seeing Northern Cardinals that are red on one side and brown on the other, indicating that a bird is half male and half female. This anomaly occurs in other species of birds, as well, not just cardinals. Insects, too! Scientists
Bright red male Northern Cardinal, with his black mask and red beak, stands on a green grassy area.

Ada Limón and the Birds of Kentucky

April 5, 2022 When poet Ada Limón moved to Kentucky with her husband for his work, she was having trouble adjusting to her new home. To connect with the place, she began learning about the local birds and plants. She found comfort in the idea of the nearly omnipresent state bird, the Northern Cardinal
A Blue Jay with its back to the viewer, looking up over its right shoulder in a quizzical or thoughtful pose

Bird...NOT! with H. Jon Benjamin

April 1, 2022 During the COVID-19 pandemic, actor H. Jon Benjamin began sharing his experiences with birds in his “Morning Bird Report” videos on social media. For April Fools Day, BirdNote has invited him to test out his birding-by-sound skills on a one-of-a-kind quiz show: Bird…NOT! Jon has to guess
Holiday card showing Northern Cardinal in snowy scene

The Cardinal: A Southerner Moves North

December 18, 2021 Holiday cards often feature gorgeous red cardinals against a snowy landscape. So it’s easy to assume the birds have always been a colorful presence in bleak Northern winters. But cardinals used to be Southern birds. By the second half of the 20th century, though, they were nesting as far
Singing Song Sparrow

How Birds Produce Sound

April 1, 2021 Nearly all birds produce sound through an organ unique to birds, the syrinx. In many songbirds, the syrinx is not much bigger than a raindrop. Extremely efficient, it uses nearly all the air that passes through it. By contrast, a human creates sound using only 2% of the air exhaled through
Female Northern Cardinal

Feisty Cardinal

November 28, 2020 You may not have seen a Northern Cardinal in the wild, but you've probably seen one on holiday cards or the cover of a bird book. During spring breeding season, biologist Eric Lind and his team capture and band birds at Constitution Marsh on the east side of the Hudson River. For eight
Northern Cardinals, male and female

Northern Cardinal - Meet the Cardinal

August 24, 2020 Is there any doubt about the identity of America's best known red bird? Surely it's the cardinal or, as you'll find it in a bird book, the Northern Cardinal. The beautiful bird seen on so many bird feeders takes its name from the cardinals found in the Vatican, whose hats and robes are red
Scarlet Tanager

What's Behind Those Lustrous Red Feathers?

June 23, 2020 Male Northern Cardinals, Scarlet Tanagers, and House Finches all have striking red plumage that’s thought to play a role in attracting mates. Males with the brightest red feathering tend to have the best luck with the females. Scientists think that a male’s redness signals to females that
A male Northern Cardinal singing on a branch

Emily K. Michael - Trading Threes

April 21, 2020 Because she’s blind, Emily K. Michael experiences birds through their songs and calls. As a birder and poet, she describes hearing three Northern Cardinals singing to each other, as she walked her dog. April is Poetry Month in the US, and we asked Emily to share her poem, Trading Threes
Northern Cardinals, male and female

Voices and Vocabularies - Cardinals' Duet

April 20, 2020 Among most North American songbirds, it’s males alone who sing. But during the nesting season, we also hear female cardinals. Just when she sings and whether or not she matches his song may determine when the male brings food to the nest. Support comes from Sasquatch Books, announcing
Northern Cardinal male at bird feeder

Annual Great Backyard Bird Count

February 14, 2020 The annual Great Backyard Bird Count, February 12-15, 2021, is sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Birdwatchers across the country count birds and then report the numbers on-line. Although it may seem that crows are everywhere, the Northern Cardinal is reported on the most lists
Male Northern Cardinal singing

Sound Escapes - A Jubilant Riot of Music

June 24, 2019 When he was just 22 years old, a young man named Samuel Clemens (who would go on to become the writer Mark Twain) signed on to train as a pilot on a Mississippi riverboat. He quickly realized that, if he volunteered for the early morning shift he could experience one of the most incredible
American Robin

American Robin, Valiant Challenger

April 29, 2019 The male American Robin - fiercely territorial - belts out its distinctive cheery song to defend its breeding territory from invasion by other robins. Sometimes, the robin sees its own reflection as an interloper and challenges the “invader” over and over, even to the point of exhaustion
Golden Seagull Monument

What's Your State Bird?

March 9, 2019 All states have an official bird, usually one that's associated with its particular region. Many state birds are quite common, although Hawaii's chosen bird, the Nene, a type of goose, is endangered. The bird chosen by the most states — seven — is the Northern Cardinal, followed by the
Northern Cardinal with seed

Beak Meets Seed

February 16, 2019 Birds like finches, chickadees and this Northern Cardinal love sunflower seeds, but each species uses a different strategy to extract the meat. When a finch plucks a sunflower seed from the feeder, it uses its tongue to maneuver the seed lengthwise into a groove on its beak. As it closes
Northern Cardinal

Birds and Baseball

July 19, 2018 At the crack of the bat, a Blue Jay flies toward first and glides around the base. Deep in left field, an Oriole pounces on the ball. He wings the ball toward second, where a fellow Oriole snares it on a hop - just as the swift Blue Jay slides toward the base in a cloud of red dust. Ahh
Prothonotary Warbler

The Big Thicket - America's Ark

July 3, 2018 Tucked away in southeast Texas is one of the most remarkable enclaves of nature. Known as The Big Thicket, this region is home to ten different ecosystems, including cypress bayous, arid sandylands, palmetto thickets, pine forests, marshes, and grasslands. The variety of natural landscapes
A child exploring the outdoors

"Thanks for Making Us Play Outside!"

July 29, 2014 As a young boy, David Sibley often explored the outdoors with his father. He recalls turning over logs to look for mole crickets, identifying plants, and watching for birds. We asked David for ways to encourage children to connect with nature: “My advice to other parents is just to get
Carolina Wren

Vernal Equinox - East

March 20, 2009 This Carolina Wren doesn't know the precise instant of the vernal equinox of course. But the wren senses the growing hours of daylight through a surge of hormones, which tell it it's time to sing. Both science and folklore tie Spring to the renewal of nature, as the world awakens from the
Cardinal (bottom) and Vireo (top)

Listeners' Stories: Cardinal and Vireo

September 20, 2008 BirdNote listener, Betsy MacGregor, talks about finding solace in the company of birds. First a bird of the eastern US, a Northern Cardinal, and then a Hutton's Vireo, a bird of the West. The cardinal creates its pure whistle by producing sound in its left and right bronchial tubes

Sights & Sounds

Birds connect us with the joy and wonder of nature. By telling vivid, sound-rich stories about birds and the challenges they face, BirdNote inspires listeners to care about the natural world – and take steps to protect it.

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