Cardinal Mate Swap

For at least a half-dozen years we have enjoyed watching our resident pair of cardinals go about the business of foraging, feeding, and rearing their young. We've been treated by their song, their beauty, and antics of the babies. I have written before that, because of the distinctive coloring of the male and female, we can easily tell them apart. Moreover, because the male is very territorial, he prevents any other male from setting up residence in our clearing; therefore, this is the only pair of cardinals we've seen around the homestead. In fact, we've watched them so many times over the years that we've gotten to know both of them—almost as family members. Their behavioral quirks have become quite familiar.

That's why I was rather startled when I watched an adult female cardinal fly to the feeder, a week or so ago. I was surprised because this was not our resident female. The breast of this bird was much lighter in color, her body was more slender, and her wings were a more somber shade of brown. I wondered if she was just passing through, which is odd in the middle of the brooding season; or if she'd soon be chased away by the larger resident female.

The new bird flew off and I went about my chores. A day or so later I spotted the newcomer again. I also recalled that I'd not seen the familiar old female in the meantime. Then I was surprised to see the male fly to the feeder one evening and join the new female. His behavior around her—eating with her, chipping back and forth as they did so, and then flying off with her—was exactly as he had done for years with his long-time mate. It hit me that this must be his new mate! I'm sure that he would not be cavorting with another female—unless his former mate was gone.

Over the next several days I watched the newly-mated pair come and go from the feeder—continuing to act like a typical cardinal couple. Something had happened to his old mate. I pondered the possibilities. I doubt that she's still alive—she'd not have surrendered her queendom of the clearing without a fight. I had watched her assertive ways for too many years to accept the fact that another female would likely dethrone her.

Cardinals may mate for just one season or for life—as our pair seemed to have done. What happens when one of the mates dies? Do they mourn the loss of the partner they've had for several years? Some people have observed the death of a mated bird, watched the behavior of the survivor, and interpreted it as grieving. This may be, but we humans have a propensity to read how we would feel in the situation into an animal's behavior. It's called anthropomorphism.

We humans will likely never know how an animal really feels. I once watched a black snake raid a bluebird nesting box, then kill and eat two babies, before I chased it off. The parents fought the snake noisily and gallantly, but I observed no mourning on their part, after the incident was over. Very soon they resumed feeding their two surviving babies (one of which I had picked up off the ground and put back in the box), behaving as if nothing had happened. They had important things to do.

As for my male cardinal and his new mate: How had he behaved at the loss of his former mate? Was he present when she met her end? Did she actually die? I can't believe that, as a settled pair for so long, he'd simply dump her. It seems odd that this would happen in the middle of the brooding season, but if she did die, why should he not promptly carry on? That indomitable spirit is what has kept this species going for millions of years.

This is yet another of those examples of what happens when you have the time to delve into an event in Mother Nature's wonderful world. You are able to learn some fascinating things—but for every single piece of knowledge you gather, you just uncover at least two more puzzling questions. It's what keeps my life here on the homestead an endless, interesting quest to understand the secrets of the natural world.

Carnal Cardinals

I have written several times about our resident pair of cardinals. I particularly enjoy watching their antics because they are the only two cardinals on the homestead, they are beautiful (especially the bright red male), and I can easily tell poppa from momma—so when I spot one of them I know that it's the same bird that I watched yesterday, last week, the last few years.

The pair is monogamous—they've fostered a few dozen broods over the years. (Cardinals in the wild—especially those who dine at well-stocked feeders—may live for up to 16 years!) Our resident cardinals often accompany each other around the clearing. Their behavior varies during the year, and is especially interesting to watch as the breeding season comes along. The male needn't worry about who he'll mate with, so he can forgo the competitive antics of other male birds, who must woo a mate. He rules the clearing—this is his lady. His fiefdom is secure. Their spring nuptial dance is fascinating to watch.

They are on intimate and familiar terms. Their communication is smooth and sure. Their language can be subtle—requiring only the most understated chipping sounds; like a long-time married pair of humans, who can get their point across with a brief look, a nod of head, and even finishing each other's sentences.

I recently watched our pair of cardinals at the feeder. During the fall and winter they literally ignore each other when they feed, but as breeding season comes on, they interact much more—chipping at each other, darting towards the other, with the male occasionally feeding her. As I observed their spring frolics recently, I imagined the following conversation between them.

She: Yeah, I know you're in a randy mood right now, but I'm more interested in my evening meal. (Later:) Where should we hide this year's nest? I wasn't very happy about last year's location. I didn't feel all that secure while I was brooding.

He: You pick the location then. Just don't make it too far from the feeder. Hey, baby, how about a little smooch?

She: Later, Romeo. Are you gonna slack off on nest building again this year, or can I count on more help from you?

He: Don't worry... I'll be there. What say we fly off and grab some juicy bugs? I'm getting tired of these sunflower seeds, day after day. Why can't those humans give us a little variety?

She: You don't appreciate me enough. Remember when you regurgitated a whole beak full of seeds and fed them to me? It was so sweet.

He: Well, if you insist. Get ready for a French kiss. Hey! What was that?! I just heard a testosterone-pumped guy singing down by the creek! This is my empire! I won't stand for this intrusion. You stay right here.. I'll be back soon.

The male flies off and begins singing loudly and imperiously, off towards the creek. The potential intruder's call fades off into the woods. The mating dance will again resume.

Stay-at-home Cardinals

In an earlier posting I described how our local pair of cardinals succeeded in fostering three broods this summer—an uncommon occurrence. To succeed in raising three broods is a good sign that mom and pop are healthy. I watched the fledglings from the first two broods disperse shortly after they left the nest. Their parents were about to start a follow-up brood and didn’t have time to coddle the previous batch, who by then knew how to fly and maybe even fend for themselves. It’s a tough world in the avian kingdom—babies don’t get pampered at all and thus the mortality rate for them is quite high, in those first few critical weeks after fledging. They fly off to locate new territory, but are very vulnerable to predators or starvation, until they learn some critical skills.

This third and final batch of offspring from our resident cardinal parents has hung around much longer than their older siblings. It’s a month or more since they fledged and they’re still loitering at the feeder. They are also beginning to molt and change into their winter colors. All cardinal young are drab colored—much like mom. As the fall ensues, they begin to replace some feathers through the molting process, and begin to acquire their adult plumage, which will not be completed until the next spring, following a couple more molts.

Two of the last three juveniles appear to be males, as their plumage is gradually getting a brighter red. I’m guessing that the third sibling is female, as she’s staying pretty drab colored, like mom. I’ve never seen the youngsters hang around this long, so I’m closely watching them, to see what will happen next.

Dispersal of the young is something that must occur for all species. Why? First, the parents may have claimed the only productive territory in the immediate vicinity, so the kids must leave in order to find their own habitat. Second, all animal species have adapted behaviors that discourage inbreeding, to keep the species healthy and robust. The way that happens is either the parents abandon the kids (if the parents do not have a home territory to defend) or the juveniles disperse. That way, family members are far less likely to breed with each other. In fact, for most songbirds, the young females tend to fly off farther than their brothers, which helps to reduce possible sister-brother inbreeding. The techniques Mother Nature has evolved are amazing!

It’s been very difficult for ornithologists to follow the dispersal habits of songbirds, because they leave the immediate area for parts unknown. How far must one try to track them? Recent technology has developed an ultra-light radio transmitter that is beginning to reveal how young songbirds disperse, so some of the mysteries will soon be solved.

So I will keep watching my cardinal family. A key question: Why has the last batch of kids stayed home thus far? I think I see dad trying to shoo them off at times, but I’m not sure that’s what’s really happening; maybe he’s just in a bad mood. Will the kids hang around all winter? The feeder sure seems to be a magnet for them. Are they still here because they’ve tried to find their own territory, but have been rebuffed by their older siblings or other unrelated cardinals?

If they stay, they might decide to help mom and dad raise more broods next summer. By doing so, youngsters can either help family genes move into the future (the main objective of any species) and/or learn nesting skills that will help them to be more successful parents the following year. I guess I’ll have to keep a close eye on this cardinal family—they’ve obviously got more to teach me.

Watching Cardinal Rearings—Part 2

As dad was taking care of his hungry offspring, mom entered the scene part way through the meal and pecked up her own food—completely ignoring her mate and kids. It was as if she was now turning the job of fueling over to her hubby. In fact, if mom is going to lay eggs for the next brood, she will rely on dad to finish raising the earlier clutch. The incubation period for cardinals is up to two weeks, followed by a nestling period of another one to two weeks—so they can raise broods some 3-4 weeks apart, if all goes well (for example, if dad completes the child raising).

This is exactly what happened. About a month later I was alerted once again by the frenetic chipping/cheeping of a cardinal fledgling. (It’s an unmistakable triple-note, high-pitched call.) I looked to see mom land on the ground beneath the feeder and her noisy child drop awkwardly behind her, insistently begging. She ignored it and abruptly flew off. The baby fluttered up into the tree. I then saw dad filling his beak at the feeder and fly over to his baby—but not too close. Dad chipped away at it (dad style, double notes, deeper tone), encouraging his baby to come to him, as if urging it to practice flying, in order to get fed. I watched him feed the kid 3-4 times, always flying to a different branch and coaxing the fledgling to come to him.

Four days later I again saw dad, this time with two youngsters. Instead of responding to their pleas with food, he aggressively flew at them, chasing them off. He repeatedly did this, until he’d scattered them. Was he forcing them into a life of self-reliance? A couple of days later I saw one youngster at the feeder, pecking away on its own. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it seemed to be successful in its attempts to feed itself. (Or was it just going through the motions?)

Each year I have watched the cardinal pair raise their young (although not in such detail), after which I never again see the youngsters. Throughout the fall, winter, and following spring the only two cardinals around here are mom and pop. Their kids have dispersed—probably rather close by, but I lose touch with them and have no idea of their whereabouts. How many survive? The survival rate of songbirds is not very high. How many successfully mate and carry on the family tradition? I have no idea.

I never saw a fledgling again for another month. I was thinking that two broods was the end of this summer’s kid raising. I assumed that my good fortune of seeing both broods successfully raised and fledged had run its course for the summer, but Lady Luck had another gift in store. About a month later (now mid August) I once again heard that insistent cardinal baby chipping sound. A third brood! I looked toward the feeder, to see a youngster perched on a twig, exhorting his dad for some food. Dad dutifully flew to the feeder, filled his bill with sunflower nuts and then stuffed them into the pleading beak of his child. It was a thrill for me to witness that third brood come to a successful conclusion. I almost felt like these youngsters were my grandkids, about to take on the big world on their own. Bon voyage!

My final peek at this third brood came three days later, when I saw three cardinal kids land on the feeder platform, next to dad. They all looked expectantly at him, hoping to get stuffed again, but he ignored them and flew off. All three of them began hesitantly to peck at seeds on their own. I wonder if I’ll get a chance in another few days to watch dad shoo this last brood away—forcing them to begin foraging for themselves in a new location. After all, this is his feeder and he’s not about to put up with competition from any adult cardinal.

Watching Cardinal Rearings—Part 1

There’s something special about cardinals that allows me to follow the local pair and observe the rearing and dispersion of their youngsters each year. It’s because—unlike other birds—I can distinguish cardinal individuals. The father is bright red, year round. The mother is a dull red, with lots of brown mixed in. There’s no confusing them! They are also the only bird around here for which I can distinguish mature from young. For most songbirds, the kids—by the time they’ve left the nest—are about the size of their parents and their coloring is virtually identical. Cardinal youngsters may look a lot like their mom, but can easily be distinguished from her by their gray bill. Mom’s (and dad’s) is a bright yellow-orange.

There’s one final special quality of our cardinals: they are the sole pair here, year after year. They remain monogamous and dad will not allow any other male cardinal to set up shop within his fiefdom. We often see other species of birds in small flocks, so telling one pair from another in that bunch is well beyond my current observational skills.

These unique qualities of the cardinal help me keep tabs on the local family. It’s a wonderful gift to be able to get to know the individuals of this crew—and not have to feel that all cardinals look alike. What helped me even more this year is that I finally discovered the location of their nest, so I could monitor mom incubating her eggs and then watch both parents feed the little ones.

All year round the cardinal parents are daily clients at the bird feeder. They particularly favor the big fat sunflower seeds that I keep well stocked. They are usually the first to come in the morning and the last to visit at dusk. At times in between I rarely see either one, except when the male perches on some exposed vantage point and lustily fills his domain with song. This pair has also been in residence for half a dozen years now, so their normal skittishness is beginning to fade, as they get more comfortable with our presence. (In fact, most of my watching is done from the outdoor tub, so maybe they’ve caught on that a naked human is not going to give chase.)

This year I was rewarded with being able to watch them raise three broods! This is uncommon—one to two broods are typical of cardinals. I’d like to believe that their plentiful diet of nutritious sunflower seeds makes them healthy enough to go for that third brood.

The show got off to a start in April. The pair usually come to the feeder about the same time each day, but then chomp away with little conviviality between them (sort of like human families eating TV dinners in front of the tube). They even appear to ignore each other, much as other feeder birds do. In mid April, however, cardinal mealtimes became far more congenial. They’d fly together to the feeder, but she would simply sit there, as if unable to figure out how to eat, and quietly chip at him. He would fill his bill and then affectionately sidle up to her as she opened her beak, and he’d tenderly French-kiss her, stuffing her bill with sunflower bits. They’d repeat this romantic food exchange a few times and then fly off into the dusk, wing-to-wing. How sweet! How attentive! Fade camera… Hollywood style.

A week or two later I spotted mom sitting on the nest. She was obviously incubating, as she’d leave the nest for only brief periods. Dad would fly over to her a few times a day and feed her, bill-to-bill. In early June I heard two birds peeping and squeaking and looked up to see two cardinal fledglings (those gray bills!) uncertainly balanced on twigs near the feeder. They fluttered and peeped, shaking their wings, as if working out the kinks in wing muscles that were being tested for the first time (or maybe in excited anticipation of the hoped-for meal). Dad appeared and began filling his beak and crop with sunflower seeds. Then he flew up to his babies, one of whom squawked loudly and urgently, as they do in the nest. It got fed first. Dad then flew to the other youngster and stuffed its bill. He made two or three more trips to satisfy his voracious kids.

More on brood number one next time…

Cardinal Window Woes

While our homestead may host a small flock of chickadees and titmice, we’ve never had more than one mating pair of cardinals. The resident male cardinal has consistently been intolerant of having any other guy of his species hang around. For a few years after we moved here the male was devilishly irritating; he kept attacking his own image in our windows, assuming it was his dreaded foe. Some days he’d land on a sill and bash away at himself for an hour or two. When that hour or two was at five in the morning, I was ready to throttle him.

I began to think that he’d addled his brain, turning it to mush, in his compulsive assaults that seemed to grow ever longer. I read with great trepidation that cardinals could live more than 20 years. That longevity, however, was achieved by a bird in captivity. Wild songbirds are lucky to live to an age of five. It made me wonder how old this guy was. How many more years would he pester us? Would he break the wild record and live with us for many more years? And would his replacement just carry on the tradition? I found my fondness for cardinals waning.

I tried taping pictures of hawks, owls, and other birds of prey to the inside of the windows, in a futile attempt to intimidate him. The fierce photos didn’t faze him. He pecked in their faces. I finally hit on the idea of tacking strips of chicken wire over some windows—just to keep him from reaching the glass. After attacking the wire a few times, he finally gave up.

A related problem had been disturbing us during that period: birds flying headlong into the windows and either becoming stunned or killed by breaking their neck. When a bird flies toward a window it sees the reflection of the sky behind it, not realizing it’s about to meet hard glass. We coddled a few birds until they regained consciousness, but it was heartbreaking to hold a bird whose life ebbed away.

After several failed experiments (like my earlier taping up of raptor photos) I hit upon an idea: fasten small tree branches to the outside of the window, so a bird perceives a tree, not open sky. It even allowed me to remove the ugly chicken wire, as the cardinal had by now apparently changed his ways. Window collisions dropped drastically, and cardinal peckings continued to be lacking.

Mom and pop cardinal even eventually became adapted to our presence—if not exactly tame. Once too shy to come to the feeder, they’ve now grown to be regular customers. They are usually the first at dawn and the last at dusk. It’s quite a sight, when light levels are diminishing, to see the brilliant red of the male fly to the feeder and sit there for several minutes, cracking sunflower seeds and spitting out the shells.

Just recently I was treated to the sight of the father feeding one of his fledged offspring, who’d scarcely acquired flying skills. Dad would pick up a seed, discard the shell, and fly to a tree. The youngster would immediately and awkwardly fly to him and get its reward: the seed stuffed into his gaping bill. The father always flew to a different spot, making his baby fly to him. It seemed to be both feeding and flying practice.

A couple of days later we heard a crash against the window and we once again sickeningly looked at each other, knowing this was a hard impact. I went out to find an immature cardinal lying on the ground, bleeding from its bill, quickly expiring. I winced yet one more time at a death that we had caused, while in vain trying to prevent it. Casing the situation out, I guessed that the inexperienced bird had tried to aim between two twigs on the branch that was tacked to the window, but failed.

I was greatly relieved later that day, when I saw the father feeding another of his offspring. I apologized to him for placing a window in his baby’s way and wished him success in his current parental investment. Could he also pass on the lesson of avoiding those branches on the windows?