Songs of second and third courtships bring the last days of June to a close. After spring's first frenzied courtships and nestings, the feathered world quietens down for a few weeks. The chores of incubation and the feeding of young take their toll from the adult bird's free-spirited life. But now the males are belting out their courting songs from dawn to dusk, anxious to get on with the busy life of a second family.
After this recurrence of activity, the birds usually cease singing until the next spring. About mid to late July most summer visitors go into molt and cease their singing. During this time summer visitors and permanent residents become almost totally silent.
The scrappy little Carolina wren belts out a song occasionally, singing more often than any other bird of this season. (Silence must be pure torture to him . . . he is such a vocal ball of feathers.) The blue jay might squall a few notes and doves continue to coo, the pewee continues his plaintive, sad song, and the wood thrush gives fewer evening concerts. The lessening of song is a sure sign the days of spring are slipping away into summer.
The brown thrasher is singing lustily and I see why. The female is sneaking twigs into a dense photinia shrub. Looking like sleek ballerinas in gray tutus, two mockingbirds gracefully soft-toe it down the driveway. But now scientists tell us it is two males bidding for territory. Evidently thinking of another nest and four more mouths to feed this summer.
Towhees are singing in the late June performance. They nest as many as three times in one season. They are with us year round. I have just seen a pair pack a brood off on their own. Now they are busy on another nest. Several years ago, a pair nested in the photinia hedge in September.
I hear the robin's cheery song each day now that he's building next door in a dogwood tree. Soon his bubbling song will cease for the season. Chasing blue jays burn green leaves with blue fire. After the chase, I watch the male feed the female. This is a courtship gesture used by many birds. He's probably courting her for the second nest and the last of the season.
Whistling loud and clear, the cardinal, no doubt, has another family in mind and before long I should find the nest in some thorny shrub or rose vine.
Soon after the active days of June are over, summer visitors hide in the wooded lot and dense borders of our yard and change into their traveling duds. Now about all we'll hear from these guys is a half-hearted short song, but usually we hear only chips and chirps.
Though summer is but a few days away, already preparations for another season have begun.
Showing posts with label Spring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spring. Show all posts
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Light Leads To Singing
Spring mornings belong to the birds. The sounds of a dew-studded morning is bird song at its best.
Light! This is what moves birds to song. The northward moving sun brings more light each day and birds are the first to respond.
Even as the sun teased us these past chilly spring days, birds felt its warm touch, and that touch was overpowering. They began to sing way back in cold February. Now bird song in our area is climaxing, but it will continue until late May and early June. It is then that most summer visitors drop courting antics and close their nurseries, causing song to decrease noticeably.
Nearly all of our permanent residents nest a second or third time. From these nestings we have the mating songs and nursery lullabies until late July and August when both residents and visitors go into molt and song turns into call notes and angry shrieks.
Arising early, shortly after six o'clock, we find a pair of Carolina wrens, who have a nest in a basket of ferns on our porch, already busy feeding the six gaping yellow-rimmed mouths in the cradle. The male stops in a near by river birch between every trip to the nest and belts out a loud, "Shree, shree, shree." His industrious mate works consistently, probably cheered on by his go-go yell.
Where the wood lot meets the wall, there's a robin's nest saddled on a sweet gum branch. Here again the mother is busy with breakfast for four babies while dad adds his melody to the morning chorus. His concert was going before we arose, and he's been at it for an hour now.
Choosing a yaupon holly for their twig and leaf nest, a pair of brown thrashers thrash the debris under the hedge. While he and she dress alike, he soon leaves the thrashing to his new wife and flies to a dead branch of a tall pine where his throaty melody fills the scented air. She leaves the ground where she's feeding and flies to the nest. We watch as she settles down. After sitting, quickly she stands up in the nest again, turns around, shakes her wings, then quickly sits again. There were two eggs in the nest yesterday. We expect three when she leaves this morning.
A southern morning would be drab indeed without the clear whistle of the cardinal as he calls, "What-cheer, what-cheer, what-cheer." He's giving a message to his less brightly colored mate who is busy checking out the cherry laurel hedge. Now, while she hides in the foliage, she sings softly and sweetly to her mate. He stops and listens. When she finishes, he begins a loud and long solo.
Two doves on pink feet swish and sway down the driveway, swinging their little hips from side to side, keeping time with their nodding heads. The dove is a prolific breeder and the two have already built their shallow stick nest high in the crotch of a pine tree. One or the other has been cooing since early morning, a soft, soothing note, compared to the loud boisterous songs of the more active yard birds.
And what would spring be without that master of song, the mockingbird. He is a tireless singer. Sitting atop a twig of a nearly-leafed tree, he sings incessantly hour after hour. We're expecting him to buy building space in the yellow jessamine vine.
He's happy and wants you to know it. The mocker has been known to change his song eighty-seven times in just seven minutes. This outburst of song is as much a part of spring as blooming dogwood trees and flaming azaleas.
Light! This is what moves birds to song. The northward moving sun brings more light each day and birds are the first to respond.
Even as the sun teased us these past chilly spring days, birds felt its warm touch, and that touch was overpowering. They began to sing way back in cold February. Now bird song in our area is climaxing, but it will continue until late May and early June. It is then that most summer visitors drop courting antics and close their nurseries, causing song to decrease noticeably.
Nearly all of our permanent residents nest a second or third time. From these nestings we have the mating songs and nursery lullabies until late July and August when both residents and visitors go into molt and song turns into call notes and angry shrieks.
Arising early, shortly after six o'clock, we find a pair of Carolina wrens, who have a nest in a basket of ferns on our porch, already busy feeding the six gaping yellow-rimmed mouths in the cradle. The male stops in a near by river birch between every trip to the nest and belts out a loud, "Shree, shree, shree." His industrious mate works consistently, probably cheered on by his go-go yell.
Where the wood lot meets the wall, there's a robin's nest saddled on a sweet gum branch. Here again the mother is busy with breakfast for four babies while dad adds his melody to the morning chorus. His concert was going before we arose, and he's been at it for an hour now.
Choosing a yaupon holly for their twig and leaf nest, a pair of brown thrashers thrash the debris under the hedge. While he and she dress alike, he soon leaves the thrashing to his new wife and flies to a dead branch of a tall pine where his throaty melody fills the scented air. She leaves the ground where she's feeding and flies to the nest. We watch as she settles down. After sitting, quickly she stands up in the nest again, turns around, shakes her wings, then quickly sits again. There were two eggs in the nest yesterday. We expect three when she leaves this morning.
A southern morning would be drab indeed without the clear whistle of the cardinal as he calls, "What-cheer, what-cheer, what-cheer." He's giving a message to his less brightly colored mate who is busy checking out the cherry laurel hedge. Now, while she hides in the foliage, she sings softly and sweetly to her mate. He stops and listens. When she finishes, he begins a loud and long solo.
Two doves on pink feet swish and sway down the driveway, swinging their little hips from side to side, keeping time with their nodding heads. The dove is a prolific breeder and the two have already built their shallow stick nest high in the crotch of a pine tree. One or the other has been cooing since early morning, a soft, soothing note, compared to the loud boisterous songs of the more active yard birds.
And what would spring be without that master of song, the mockingbird. He is a tireless singer. Sitting atop a twig of a nearly-leafed tree, he sings incessantly hour after hour. We're expecting him to buy building space in the yellow jessamine vine.
He's happy and wants you to know it. The mocker has been known to change his song eighty-seven times in just seven minutes. This outburst of song is as much a part of spring as blooming dogwood trees and flaming azaleas.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Spring Follows Its Own Schedule
The calendar informs us spring has been with us now for three days, but we cannot always depend on spring to exactly follow our calendar.
Azaleas, violets, flowering quince, dogwood and Japanese magnolia were showing color early. Changing weather, now warm, now cold, keeps waking them up and then they have trouble wrapping themselves in their long underwear again for protection in this come again, gone again spring.
The way to tell spring is finally here is when the air is sweet-scented with tea olive, when tender green leaves are popping out all over the boxwoods, sasanquas, blooming azaleas, roses and oxeye daisies are pushing through mulched ground. Spring comes not by calendar's prediction but as an answer to the call of the sun that reaches deep within roots and buds.
Bird songs say spring lies ahead, no matter the rain, or a swing in temperature from 70 degrees to dips of morning lows into the 20s.
One of the most delightful promises of spring is the singing of birds. It is a joy to hear them, a joy to watch their nuptial antics, and a joy to see the beginnings of nest building.
A Carolina wren awakens us from deep sleep on a sunny morning with its loud "sheree, sheree, sheree, tea-kettle, tea-kettle." A cardinal joins in the music. "What cheer, cheer, cheer, cheer" sounds loud and strong. A towhee tweets in the budding azaleas, a chickadee calls his name over and over. When we look out on the front lawn, robins are doing the "River Dance," stiff-legged and unbending straight upper bodies.
Resident birds are already practicing mating songs. The morning chorus gets louder and sweeter and longer each morning. At this time of the season, the choir is made up of local yodelers. They will have picked out locations and some probably will have young before our visitors arrive from the tropics. Then the morning choir grows more beautiful as the voices of our summer guests blend with our local residents.
A goodly number of winter guests will have departed by now, weather permitting, including the dark-eyed juncos, red-breasted nuthatches and purple finches. White-throated sparrows are not in a hurry to leave, some lingering until May. Though millions of red-winged blackbirds opt to stay in the South, millions more are winging northward to nesting grounds in the meadows and marshes, weaving long black lines in the sky.
Within days summer residents will begin to arrive with spring in their throats. The wood thrush, crested flycatcher, orchard oriole, summer tanager, red-eyed, white-eyed and yellow throated vireos jet in through the first weeks of April. Purple martins are here and chimney swifts will be in before the end of the month. The first venturesome hummingbirds, green-backed and ruby-throated, are usually in by the last of March, depending on the blooming flowers.
All our forecasts for the widespread arrivals of our summer guests, of course, depend on the weather . . . spring's only true calendar.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Enjoy Spring Now!
Everything is responding to an age-old rhythm. Day and night have changed, shorter nights with longer days bringing more light and warmth. Things that seemed dead are burgeoning with life.
Daffodils stand tall with yellow bloom. New green life pokes up on bleached lawns, swamp willows have a lacy mahogany cap. Bluebirds nestle together on naked limbs and chosen boxes. With nuptial thoughts the male and female cardinals are eating together again at the table. Pine warblers serenaded daily before leaving the yard early for nesting in high pines. Doves softly coo.
February winds change course often but now comes a warm wind, soft as a kitten's fur, more and more days from the southwest. Under its spell, violets bloom, tight red quince buds unfurl, and cascades of yellow-bell brighten yards. Yes, we are aware of how quickly late winter weather can change. A cold winter day could hold them back, but on warm days they rush to catch up, and do. The Carolina wren is up and singing at first dawn. He's looking around for a home, looking over the real estate in our yard. They'll make good neighbors, the wren and the cardinal. Red-tailed hawks soar and swirl in the warm thermals. Purple martins are already here and looking for apartments. Sinuous columns of blackbirds darken the sky as they push northward.
On warm days, spring comes skipping through, tossing aside fragments of winter, gathering in her arms the smell of moist earth, the perfumed essence of tea olive and spice-scented camellias. With color, renewal and growth, spring is on her way, no matter the weather we have today.
Out my kitchen window I watch a pair of doves sashay up and down the driveway picking up fallen grain from feeders. One waddled over to the small rock pool, drank, then fluffed himself out upon a gray rock and sat perfectly still. I was surprised at how hard it was to see him and distinguish him from the gray rocks surrounding the pool.
Nature's camouflage is the "best ever invented" and no doubt it is given to her creatures as a survival weapon. I walk in the yard on one of the near 70 degree days and find another evidence of spring — a little ribbon snake sunning itself on the warm stone walk. Apparently he has not long been out of hibernation and has just shed his old skin. On this day he was a beautiful shiny patent leather black with a sunny yellow ribbon running down his back. I stand still and watch him. He lifts his sleepy eyes and nods, then slides off into the liriope. I look for his cast-off skin but don't find it.
The mockingbird is in fine form this morning. For ten minutes from the top of the chimney he pours out his sweetest, most musical song. Then all of a sudden he starts mimicking other birds. I counted as many as five other birds' songs that came from the mocker's throat. A brown thrasher, the mocker's cousin, is showering the neighborhood with rich, throaty notes of his beautiful nuptial song from high in a bud-swelling tree.
So much beauty and song today that will be gone in such a short time. Get out and enjoy SPRING today!
Daffodils stand tall with yellow bloom. New green life pokes up on bleached lawns, swamp willows have a lacy mahogany cap. Bluebirds nestle together on naked limbs and chosen boxes. With nuptial thoughts the male and female cardinals are eating together again at the table. Pine warblers serenaded daily before leaving the yard early for nesting in high pines. Doves softly coo.
February winds change course often but now comes a warm wind, soft as a kitten's fur, more and more days from the southwest. Under its spell, violets bloom, tight red quince buds unfurl, and cascades of yellow-bell brighten yards. Yes, we are aware of how quickly late winter weather can change. A cold winter day could hold them back, but on warm days they rush to catch up, and do. The Carolina wren is up and singing at first dawn. He's looking around for a home, looking over the real estate in our yard. They'll make good neighbors, the wren and the cardinal. Red-tailed hawks soar and swirl in the warm thermals. Purple martins are already here and looking for apartments. Sinuous columns of blackbirds darken the sky as they push northward.
On warm days, spring comes skipping through, tossing aside fragments of winter, gathering in her arms the smell of moist earth, the perfumed essence of tea olive and spice-scented camellias. With color, renewal and growth, spring is on her way, no matter the weather we have today.
Out my kitchen window I watch a pair of doves sashay up and down the driveway picking up fallen grain from feeders. One waddled over to the small rock pool, drank, then fluffed himself out upon a gray rock and sat perfectly still. I was surprised at how hard it was to see him and distinguish him from the gray rocks surrounding the pool.
Nature's camouflage is the "best ever invented" and no doubt it is given to her creatures as a survival weapon. I walk in the yard on one of the near 70 degree days and find another evidence of spring — a little ribbon snake sunning itself on the warm stone walk. Apparently he has not long been out of hibernation and has just shed his old skin. On this day he was a beautiful shiny patent leather black with a sunny yellow ribbon running down his back. I stand still and watch him. He lifts his sleepy eyes and nods, then slides off into the liriope. I look for his cast-off skin but don't find it.
The mockingbird is in fine form this morning. For ten minutes from the top of the chimney he pours out his sweetest, most musical song. Then all of a sudden he starts mimicking other birds. I counted as many as five other birds' songs that came from the mocker's throat. A brown thrasher, the mocker's cousin, is showering the neighborhood with rich, throaty notes of his beautiful nuptial song from high in a bud-swelling tree.
So much beauty and song today that will be gone in such a short time. Get out and enjoy SPRING today!
Monday, March 17, 2008
Marching Into Spring
Puffy white clouds in a wedge-wood sky tell us spring is in the wings. March is known for its chilling, biting winds, but some days bring a soft warm breeze that beckons buds to blossom, birds to begin their dawn chorus and nuptial songs and all around us there is growing greenness.
Trees were late to lose their leaves last fall, some holding onto their precious finery until after the first of the year. But they haven't been loafing these short weeks of the new year, with sunny warm days now and then. Buds on the beech are long and pointed. Sweet gum buds and big and fat and yellow, like dabs of butter. Fattening buds of the winged-elm are reddish-brown and hairy.
To see the first spring flowers, go for a walk in the woods where emerging fiddle-heads of ferns greet you before uncoiling to become feathery fronds. The bird's-foot violet (so named because of its foliage resembling a bird's foot) and the common blue violet are blooming. Blue flags with grass-like leaves hail you when you go tramping in moist deciduous woods.
Trilliums will be easy to spot because they have leaves, petals and sepals in the whorls of three.
Another spring flower is the trout lilly, or yellow adder's tongue. Greenish-purple points emerge from under brown leaves or grasses. Soon after the stems appear, mottled leaves, and then lemon-colored flowers will cover the roadside ditches and sun-filled woods. The beauty of wildflowers is enhanced by the very wildness about them.
Splitting the air with his home-coming call, that black beauty, the fish crow, announces his presence. Others join him. As they move across the pond, the racket diminishes. Sweet warbles of the bluebird fall softly from the perfumed air of crab apple blossoms. The twitterings of chimney swifts bring spring closer.
On one greening and sunny day, you'll hear the chipping sparrow, the dark-eyed junco and the pine warbler singing. All three songs sound much alike. Knowing this, you'll need to search diligently in order to find the songster.
Everywhere, everywhere music! Cardinals singing, Carolina wrens, brown thrashers, mockingbirds, with woodpeckers drumming and hammering. All these natives or year-round songsters, proclaiming spring with their cheerful carols.
The morning chorus in our area lasts longer than in some. Today permanent residents pour out a throaty opera every morning. By the time these are through courting and nest building, they become busy with family chores, which necessarily mean less singing. By then summer residents arrive with spring in their throats. The wood thrush, the great-crested flycatcher, summer tanager, orchard oriole, join in the dawn chorus.
You know spring is hear when you hear the lovely but tireless warbling of the red-eyed vireo.
Trees were late to lose their leaves last fall, some holding onto their precious finery until after the first of the year. But they haven't been loafing these short weeks of the new year, with sunny warm days now and then. Buds on the beech are long and pointed. Sweet gum buds and big and fat and yellow, like dabs of butter. Fattening buds of the winged-elm are reddish-brown and hairy.
To see the first spring flowers, go for a walk in the woods where emerging fiddle-heads of ferns greet you before uncoiling to become feathery fronds. The bird's-foot violet (so named because of its foliage resembling a bird's foot) and the common blue violet are blooming. Blue flags with grass-like leaves hail you when you go tramping in moist deciduous woods.
Trilliums will be easy to spot because they have leaves, petals and sepals in the whorls of three.
Another spring flower is the trout lilly, or yellow adder's tongue. Greenish-purple points emerge from under brown leaves or grasses. Soon after the stems appear, mottled leaves, and then lemon-colored flowers will cover the roadside ditches and sun-filled woods. The beauty of wildflowers is enhanced by the very wildness about them.
Splitting the air with his home-coming call, that black beauty, the fish crow, announces his presence. Others join him. As they move across the pond, the racket diminishes. Sweet warbles of the bluebird fall softly from the perfumed air of crab apple blossoms. The twitterings of chimney swifts bring spring closer.
On one greening and sunny day, you'll hear the chipping sparrow, the dark-eyed junco and the pine warbler singing. All three songs sound much alike. Knowing this, you'll need to search diligently in order to find the songster.
Everywhere, everywhere music! Cardinals singing, Carolina wrens, brown thrashers, mockingbirds, with woodpeckers drumming and hammering. All these natives or year-round songsters, proclaiming spring with their cheerful carols.
The morning chorus in our area lasts longer than in some. Today permanent residents pour out a throaty opera every morning. By the time these are through courting and nest building, they become busy with family chores, which necessarily mean less singing. By then summer residents arrive with spring in their throats. The wood thrush, the great-crested flycatcher, summer tanager, orchard oriole, join in the dawn chorus.
You know spring is hear when you hear the lovely but tireless warbling of the red-eyed vireo.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Spring Arrives
For those of us in the northern hemisphere, it's almost spring! The calendar confirms it . . . spring will arrive precisely at 1:48 AM EDT Thursday, March 20, 2008.
Spring with color and life and action is on its way. As the earth warms, you can smell it . . . one of the most delightful fragrances of the natural world, the warming of the damp earth.
Down along the banks of most creeks, tributaries, and rivers, shining bright in the midday light, purple violets are peeping through last season's litter. Ferns are uncurling. Pussy willows are budding, swamp willows are putting on mahogany dress and maple trees are tasseled in red and green. Yellow Jessamine is blooming, its sweet fragrance tossed about on warm spring breezes.
The warm wind touches your cheek and tells you spring is here! The sun is bright and cumulus clouds move across the deep blue sky. Chickadees and titmice and Carolina wrens are in an old rotting elm, signing spring and gobbling newly hatched insects. The March sun is a heat lamp for many creatures.
Mockingbirds are signing nuptial songs. A brown thrasher belts out a loud, throaty number from the top of a greening sapling. A spectacular pileated woodpecker cracks the quietness with his raucous and loud "kuk-kuk-kukkuk — kuk-kuk-kuk."
Flocks of pompous migrating robins will leave our lawns and parks to our resident robins weeks ago. Dark-eyed juncos show eagerness to get back to the moss-covered, wind-swept rock outcroppings of the mountains. They packed their gray suits days ago and will leave on the beams of the waxing and waning silvery moon. A remnant of white-throated sparrows will hang around until May. The purple finches that visited off and on since the first snow are gone.
Still with us are the merry little goldfinches, a delight these spring days. They are late nesters, late July and August, and have no thought of becoming bogged down with parental duties at this delightful time of year. They are gay and happy, swarming over feeders and putting on a deeper yellow suit each day. Even the little black hat is beginning to take shape.
We don't have time to regret the leaving of these friends for already purple martins are chuckling around their new homes. Barn swallows are darting under and over bridges, anticipating the mud cradles they will build later in the season.
A first year orchard oriole, with crisp black cravat, announced from a tall sweet gum his arrival from the tropics. The announcement was loud and sweet and short. Then he was off, looking for a site for a swinging apartment which he will build out of slender green grasses.
Yellow-throated warblers will show up on schedule early in March. Rough-winged swallows and fish crows will also be arriving soon.
Be prepared for the vast migration of warblers in April. Millions of these colorful wood imps will move up the countryside all through the days of April.
There's pleasure and excitement awaiting you with bird watching this spring!
Spring with color and life and action is on its way. As the earth warms, you can smell it . . . one of the most delightful fragrances of the natural world, the warming of the damp earth.
Down along the banks of most creeks, tributaries, and rivers, shining bright in the midday light, purple violets are peeping through last season's litter. Ferns are uncurling. Pussy willows are budding, swamp willows are putting on mahogany dress and maple trees are tasseled in red and green. Yellow Jessamine is blooming, its sweet fragrance tossed about on warm spring breezes.
The warm wind touches your cheek and tells you spring is here! The sun is bright and cumulus clouds move across the deep blue sky. Chickadees and titmice and Carolina wrens are in an old rotting elm, signing spring and gobbling newly hatched insects. The March sun is a heat lamp for many creatures.
Mockingbirds are signing nuptial songs. A brown thrasher belts out a loud, throaty number from the top of a greening sapling. A spectacular pileated woodpecker cracks the quietness with his raucous and loud "kuk-kuk-kukkuk — kuk-kuk-kuk."
Flocks of pompous migrating robins will leave our lawns and parks to our resident robins weeks ago. Dark-eyed juncos show eagerness to get back to the moss-covered, wind-swept rock outcroppings of the mountains. They packed their gray suits days ago and will leave on the beams of the waxing and waning silvery moon. A remnant of white-throated sparrows will hang around until May. The purple finches that visited off and on since the first snow are gone.
Still with us are the merry little goldfinches, a delight these spring days. They are late nesters, late July and August, and have no thought of becoming bogged down with parental duties at this delightful time of year. They are gay and happy, swarming over feeders and putting on a deeper yellow suit each day. Even the little black hat is beginning to take shape.
We don't have time to regret the leaving of these friends for already purple martins are chuckling around their new homes. Barn swallows are darting under and over bridges, anticipating the mud cradles they will build later in the season.
A first year orchard oriole, with crisp black cravat, announced from a tall sweet gum his arrival from the tropics. The announcement was loud and sweet and short. Then he was off, looking for a site for a swinging apartment which he will build out of slender green grasses.
Yellow-throated warblers will show up on schedule early in March. Rough-winged swallows and fish crows will also be arriving soon.
Be prepared for the vast migration of warblers in April. Millions of these colorful wood imps will move up the countryside all through the days of April.
There's pleasure and excitement awaiting you with bird watching this spring!
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
The Cardinal's Song of Spring
Nature brings another proof that spring is easing its way into the southeast . . . a cardinal signing.
This gallant Casanova usually starts his spring mating songs in early February. Although the days remain chilly, he brings thoughts of spring to us through his melodies.
The mate will wait a few days before she commences her musical response. At this time antiphonal singing seems to be "their thing". She begins singing, stops. The suitor then picks up and sings the same song. He then waits for her to sing again and stop before he pitches in. When she changes the song or whistle, so does he. He's courting, you see, and aims to please. Often, they will sing together.
And a gracious wooer he is. Make it a point to listen to the soft and tender musical notes of his whisper song when he serenades his bride in the early spring twilight.
Though not as striking in color as her mate, the female presents a colorful picture in her more subdued clothes of olive and buff browns. Her tail and wings are washed in red, though it is not as brilliant as her mate's.
Both sexes have black faces. The black is wrapped around a large conical-shaped red bill. Both wear a black bow tie.
In the South, the cardinal is one of our best known and best loved back-yard birds. During these chilly days a cardinal winging past your window is like a radiant flying rose, or a ruby that can sing.
If you would like the cardinal to nest on your premises, landscape with thorny shrubs, rose vines, small dense trees and tangles. Give him what he wants and he will pay you handsomely in song for years to come.
In early April a cup of rootlets and grasses is placed in a thorny vine or tangle where usually four greenish-white, heavily speckled eggs are laid. Little pink nestlings are hatched in around 12 days, remaining in the nest for another 10 days or so.
The male is the exemplary father and as soon as the young leave the nest he takes complete charge of them while the female bustles about with a second nest. One birder observed one Cardinal pair building five nests in a single season, and another pair successfully producing four broods. Prolific breeders, these grosbeaks!
In their winter haunts, cardinals often gather into large flocks of 20 to 30 birds.
This red-feathered cavalier is no longer considered strictly a southern bird as he is expanding his range rapidly into the Northern Mississippi Valley and into New England, even into Canada. One reason thought to be responsible for his rapid expansion to the north is increased winter feeding, encouraging him to remain where the grub is.
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