Northern Cardinals

Attract Northern Cardinals to your yard all year long with feeders, water and shrubs.

Male Northern Cardinals are all red with the exception of the black patch around its thick triangular or conical bill. Add to this the pointed crest and it is instantly identifiable by bird enthusiasts.    photo by Hollingsworth us Wildlife

The female is brownish with some red on the wings and tail. Just like the male the female has a dark face, and heavy red bill, good for eating seeds. Adults are 7 ½ to 9 inches Young birds look much like the female, with darker bills.

by Menke, Dave US Wildlife

The Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) is a year round resident of the Eastern U.S., and continues to spread north. It is so well liked that more states have adopted it as their state bird than any other bird. These states are: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Sound
The birds have several variations of repeated whistles (whe-cheer-cheer or whertee-whertee-wherte).  A contact or alarm call sounds like chip.

Cardinal song  Click to hear Sound

Attracting Cardinals to your Backyard

Because Cardinals are not migratory you can attract them to your yard all year long.  There bright red plumage is striking in snow.
 Get a Cardinal puzzle.

Many kinds of shrubs and trees will attract them to your yard. Some are, blueberry, cherry, dogwood, mulberry sumac and many more.

In addition to eating any fruit these may provide they may nest and raise their young in the dense shrubs.

Nesting and Breeding

Once he develops a territory the male cardinals will aggressively defend it. They have been known to attack their reflections in windows, mistaking them for other males.

Cardinals will mate for life and remain together throughout the entire year.

Breeding season begins in late March to early April.  Cardinals will breed in a wide variety of areas.

They prefer to build their nest in shrubbery or a thickly branched tree. The female will build a cup shaped nest in 3 to 9 days. Nesting materials are twigs, weeds, and grasses; bark fibers, dead leaves, moss, rags and other debris.

There will be between two and five white or greenish eggs with dark streaks and spots on them. Usually the female will incubate the eggs for 11 to 13 days. The young will be fed by both parents for around 10 days and will be able to fly well in about 20 days.

Two, three or four broods may be raised in a breeding season. The male will tend the brood while the female starts the next brood.

Feeders and Food

Natural foods
In the wild, Cardinals eat fruit, seed, and insects. Their heavy conical bills allow them to eat a wider range of seeds than birds with smaller bills such as sparrows or finches.

They search from the ground for food and can be heard foraging in bushes when they are out of sight. As they hope around they will scratch the ground with both feet searching for insects and other food

Feeders
If you put out feeders they will eat almost any kind of fruit and seeds you offer them. Good food choices are cracked corn, millet, bread, nutmeats, safflower, peanut butter mixes and suet. A favorite is un-hulled black-oil sunflower seeds.

If you watch them at the feeder you will see them touch beaks as they offer each other seeds.

Water
In addition to food provide a source of water for drinking and bathing.
Many birds will come to clean their feathers in a birdbath. Running or dripping water will also attract them. Birds love to bathe in a slow sprinkler.

For more on food and feeding click here.
For more on feeders click here.
To learn about other favorite birds click here.
Use our interactive coloring to color a Northern Ca

Golden Eagles are the national bird of Mexico.

Identification and Pictures

(Aquila chrysaetos)

Golden Eagles are large birds of prey about 30 to 41 inches.  Their wing span is 6 to 7 feet.  They are dark brownish, getting a little lighter at the base of the tail.  There is a bit of gold on the back of the neck and head.  They have a large hooked bill, good for tearing meat.  They have long broad wings, and tail.  The legs are feathered all the way to the toes.  The sexes are similar.  Young birds have a white tail, and white at the base of the wing primaries that can be seen when they fly.  Young Bald Eagles are often mistaken for Golden Eagles.

Golden Eagles fly with slow wing beats, often soaring on thermal currents.

Photos by Keith Lee.  The camera I use is the Canon EOS 40D.

Golden Eagle sound

They are not often heard.  They have a high scream and yelping bark.  Sound

Preferred Habitat

Golden Eagles range throughout most of the Northern Hemisphere.  They can be found throughout the western part of North America, but they are not common in the east.  They like open mountains, canyons, plains, and foothills.

Breeding and Nesting

Golden Eagles mate at around 4 years and pair off for life.  Both birds will build a nest of sticks, lined with fine wood materials on a cliff or large tree.  They will normally return to the same nest each year.  The female lays 1 to 4 creamy white eggs with small brown blotches.  Normally the female alone will incubate the eggs for 41 to 45 days.  While she is incubating the male will bring her food.  Both parents will care for the young birds.  The young birds will stay in the nest for around 10 weeks before fledging.   The availability of food determines whether the Eagles will migrate or not.

Food 

Being powerful flyers Golden eagles often hunt from the air.  The main diet of Golden eagles is rabbits, hares, groundhogs, marmots, foxes, and squirrels, but they can and do feed on much larger animals such as mountain sheep, and caribou.  They may have a hunting territory of 60 square miles or more.

To learn about other favorite birds click here.

Golden eagles are protected in the United States.  Possession of a feather or other body part is a felony with a fine of up to $10,000, and or 10 years in prison.  Native Americans are exempt from this because it is part of their native culture.