English name :  Northern cardinal
               French name :  Cardinal rouge
               Latin name :  Cardinalis cardinalis
               Breadth :  30 cm
               Length :    22 cm
               Weight :    45 g

A crested bird with a big red beak. The male’s coloring is completely red with a bib and around it’s beak black up to the eyes. Rather timid, it frequents birdfeeders early mornings or late nights. Abundant during some winters and sometimes gregarious. More dispersed during summer.

 Bird Feeder for the Northern Cardinal 

HABITAT
Coniferous, mixed, and leafy forests,  shrubs, bushes, and along waters’ edges, in towns, in cities, and in the country.

NESTING
The Northern Cardinal places his nest in small leafy trees or dense conifers, or wild vines generally 3 m from the ground. The nest is a loose structure composed of branches, leaves, bark, grass, rootlets and decorated with fine grass and hair. The female constructs the nest between three (3) and four (4) days and is occasionally assisted by the male. A period of six (6) days can separate the construction of the nest and the laying of the first egg.

Environment Canada (nest)
 

Eggs, three (3) or four (4), 25.3 x 18.2 mm, oval sometimes short oval or long oval shaped. The shell is smooth and slightly shiny, grayish, bluish, greenish white, marked with points, spots and splashes of brown and grayish purple often concentrated around the cap. Incubation is assured principally by the female in May and does not begin until the laying of the third egg and lasts between 11 and 13 days. The young are born altricial. The young leave the nest 9 to 11 days after hatching. The young begin to fly well after about 19 days and are not independent until 38 to 45 days after their birth. The two (2) sexes educate their young. There can be two (2) broods per year.

Food
Berries and seeds of all sorts.

Your charter of the preferred food of your birds
 

MIGRATION
Southern United States but are beginning to appear more often in the south of Québec during the winter.

Cornell Ornithology Lab 
 

Websites for additional information:

Canada : Environment Canada 
 

United States : Cornell Lab of Ornithology  
 
The Museum of Civilization : Audubon, Paint, Nature and Adventure 
 

Definition:  altricial
Consult the glossary of the Canadian Wildlife and Flora Service