Feathers and Fuzz

one woman's cure for the empty-nester blues

Feathers

Male Northern Cardinal Feeding Junior

by

As I write this post in early August, juvenile Northern Cardinals are everywhere. They’re eating black oil, safflower, suet and mealworms — just about everything. One of the cameras caught Dad feeding Junior. As you will see in the video, Junior was deeply into being stuffed with live mealworms!

As the video goes on, you’ll see Dad leaving Junior to fend for himself. Poor Junior. He seems to notice at first that his worms taste less delicious than the ones Dad was feeding him. But — he never does realize that he is eating the dried mealworms tossed along side a cup of live ones.

One last comment. Since I just did a post on distinguishing between juvenile male and female Cardinals, one has to at least guess which this is. I’ll put my guess (and it is a guess) at the bottom of this post*.

 

* Based on the red splotching on the face … my guess is:  Juvenile Male … but it’s just a guess.

At My Feeders: Northern Cardinal

by

At My Feeders:  Northern Cardinal

The Northern Cardinal is resident in my area (Emerson, GA) throughout the year.

At My Feeders: Northern Cardinal
Female and Male Northern Cardinals

As is true in most birds, the adult male is brightly colored and the adult female is relatively plain-colored.  The male is easily identified by his rich, red color and black face mask.  A heavy, wide beak is typical of all post-fledging Northern Cardinals.

The beak is our key to gauging age.  Newly-fledged cardinals have a solid black beak.

Black Beak - Juvi Male Cardinal
Black Beak - Young, Juvenile Male Cardinal

As Cardinals mature, the beak will go through a "mottled" stage before turning the solid orange color seen in both male and female adults.  The trickier part is distinguishing between a juvenile male cardinal and a juvenile female cardinal.  Since both genders of adult cardinals have a solid, red tail -- we can't use the tail as our gauge.  I look for red splotches beginning to form in areas which are typically tan-colored in adult females.  This tells me I am looking at a juvenile male vs female.

Juvi Male Cardinal - Mottled Beak

Juvenile Male Northern Cardinal

Juvi Female Cardinal - Mottled Beak

Juvenile Female Northern Cardinal

Now, just when you thought you had this ... look again.  A juvenile Northern Cardinal and a juvenile Summer Tanager look a lot alike!

Juvenile Cardinal Similar to Summer Tanager

Juvenile Northern Cardinal

Juvenile Tanager Similar to Juvi Cardinal

Juvenile Summer Tanager

At My Feeders: Northern Cardinals