In honour of the Superbowl...

I have decided to blog the female cardinal (I had to get some gender balance in there somewhere). The female cardinal might get overlooked since her male counterpart overshadows her in terms of colour. However, when the light hits the female's feather just right, you can see the beautiful brown with a hint of red. The female's beak is a beautiful bright orange colour too. We see many pairs here, especially in the winter They were frequenting our yard but then from about June until mid-Dember we only saw them a few times and only about 2-3 at a time (usually 2 males and one female). They finally reappeared at our feeders in December and have been showing up in greater numbers since then- usually at most between 3 and 5 at a time, although we have seen up to 8 or more. Their preference seems to be the sunflower seeds and they are usually at the ground feeding from the feeder at a bit of a distance from the window. Something interesting about cardinals is that they usually remain in their pairings year-round and will call to each other. This makes it (to me) especially tragic when one dies since it's mate will be looking for it and calling in vain. I find that pretty depressing to think about, so I'll move on.

As I'm cheering for the Cardinals in the NFL today, I'm cheering for and cheered by the cardinals (the birds) in real life. I really like these birdes- they seem hopeful and bring some colour to an often bleak winter landscape. Here are some shots I took last week of one of our "femme cardinales" being her sassy self just out front our main window.