Northern cardinal was named Illinois' state bird in 1929

Sometimes bird names are conveniently separated by directions. For instance, there are eastern and western meadowlarks. Can you guess on which side of the continent each species lives? Well, duh.

Similarly there are eastern and western screech owls living where you would expect. These directional names, however, don't always come in pairs. While there is a northern goshawk, there is no southern counterpart.

Similarly there is only a northern cardinal, which is the subject of this column.

A recent arrival

The northern cardinal is the state bird of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia. Please note that none of the northern tier of states is on this list. That's because the cardinal has only recently moved north.

When Illinois became a state in 1818, spotting a cardinal in the northern portion of the Land of Lincoln would have been highly unusual.

It first expanded its range to northern Ohio in the 1830s. It did not reach the southeast corner of Michigan until 1884. In 1912, H.K. Coale had heard of one specimen in Lake County, Illinois, but had not seen the bird.

One study in the show-me-state summarized it nicely, “In Missouri, significant increases coincided with conversion of forest and prairie to park and residential land….”

How did human expansion facilitate the cardinal's expansion? First, let's review its way of life. The cardinal does not require large tracts of undisturbed habitats.

It favors fragmented landscapes. In particular, it inhabits shrubby areas such as marsh or forest edges, hedgerows in agricultural fields, and plantings near buildings.

Doesn't that type of habitat sound familiar?

Diet and location

What do cardinals eat? Look at that beak (see photos). The species dines on fruits and seeds of dogwood, mulberry, sumac, hackberry, plus domestic corn and oats.

Believe it or not, cardinals have been observed peeling a grape, removing the pulp and seeds, and discarding the skin.

Overall, the cardinal's diet is roughly 70% vegetable matter and 30% animal matter. The latter includes beetles, grasshoppers, crickets, cicadas, stink bugs, centipedes and snails. It concentrates on hunting insects when it has young beaks to feed.

Look for a cardinal's cup-shaped nest to be wedged into a thick tangle of twigs or vines, usually in a shrub or small tree. They aren't too particular about the kind of tree. In fact, nests have been found in more than 50 species of shrubs and saplings, including dogwood, hawthorn, honeysuckle, sugar maple, box elder, American elm, black locust, wild grape, multiflora rose, raspberry, eastern red cedar, and white spruce.

It is those evergreen trees that inspired this article. If you exchange Christmas cards with friends and co-workers, I'd bet that almost every year you get a card that includes a bright, red male cardinal perched on the branch of a snow-covered conifer.

For some of us, such a winter scene brings a smile to our faces. For others, snow and ice makes them shiver and long for some tropical resort in Hawaii. Guess what species made trips to this sultry location? Yep, the “northern” cardinal.

Of course, it didn't get to Hawaii without a little help. The same year schoolchildren voted the cardinal to be our state bird, 1929, redbirds were first released in Hawaii. It is now established throughout all the southeastern Hawaiian Islands.

Interestingly, cardinals were one of the first avian species to recolonize an area in Hawaii that had been cleared of its native rainforest. In addition, they were more abundant on the disturbed site than any of the indigenous Hawaiian bird species.

I always find such wildlife relocation stories amusing. It wasn't like Hawaii lacked a variety of bird life. We, meaning us Europeans, never seem content with what we have. Whether it is bringing starlings from Europe to North America or cardinals from the mainland to Hawaii, we can't seem to leave well enough alone. Perhaps we just miss the sights and sounds of our previous home.

Sounds and looks

Speaking of sounds, the cardinal makes one of the strongest and most easily recognized bird songs to be heard. The song is a repetition of loud slurred whistles.

Some describe it as “what cheer, cheer, cheer, cheer, cheer, what, what, what, what.”

Both genders make the call. Hearing this rich song in February, when most other birds are relatively quiet, can brighten up a dreary winter day.

By the way, birds can have regional accents. I became aware of this when listening to cardinals. The redbirds I heard while working in eastern Kansas did not sound quite like the cardinals I grew up with in northern Illinois.

Regardless of the songster's location, the cardinal's feathers can be as vividly red in both northern and the southern habitats. However, the redness does vary with diet.

Male cardinals' red color comes from carotenoids, a pigment found in the seeds and fruits they eat. These pigments accumulate in the cells of growing feathers. Varying with a few factors, carotenoids appear as bright red in the male cardinal's feathers.

As is often the case, it is the intensity of his red hue that makes him more attractive to the opposite sex. Keep in mind that the male cardinal is more than just eye candy for his mate. He regularly helps feed the chicks. Often, the male cardinal makes more feeding visits to the nest than the female.

Unless a cardinal is nesting in front of a stop sign or stoplight, it won't be well camouflaged. Even the more subdued female cardinal is not going to win first place in any camouflage contest, not with that orange beak framed in black. Perhaps that's a reason they build their nests in thick brambles. Fewer than 40% of nests successfully fledge at least one young.

The coloration might also have a part to play in the difference between longevity of the two genders. The oldest male reported was just over 13 years while the oldest female was 15 years, nine months.

Overall, cardinals don't live too long. In a 12-year study of 1,621 marked individuals, only two made it to six years of age, three birds got through five years, nine got to four years, and 16 were last seen at three years. The rest presumably perished.

Keep in mind that as a nonmigratory species, cardinals don't have to withstand the trials of long-distance traveling. Many migratory songbirds suffer higher mortality rates.

This brings me back to the northern cardinal. This clearly is a bird with southern affinities. Many humans who worked in the northern rust belt later settled in warmer, southern climes. The cardinal, over the centuries, has done the opposite. We are the richer for it, and so are our Christmas cards.

Mark Spreyer is executive director of the Stillman Nature Center in Barrington. Email him at stillnc@wildblue.net.