Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis)

"The male Northern Cardinal is perhaps responsible for getting more people to open up a field guide than any other bird. They’re a perfect combination of familiarity, conspicuousness, and style: a shade of red you can’t take your eyes off. Even the brown females sport a sharp crest and warm red accents. Cardinals don’t migrate and they don’t molt into a dull plumage, so they’re still breathtaking in winter’s snowy backyards. In summer, their sweet whistles are one of the first sounds of the morning." (Quote from Cornell Lab of Ornithology All About Birds.)

During winter Cardinals tend to aggregate in loose flocks. Seeing several males sitting together provides a welcome contrast to an otherwise drab winter scene. In late spring and summer, cardinals form pair bonds and a male will vigorously defend his territory against incursion by any other male. It is not unusual to see a male fighting with his own reflection in a car's outside mirrors.

Cardinals seem determined to stretch their day out for as long as possible. The Cornell site notes "... their sweet whistles are one of the first sounds of the morning." During the summer, I often work out in our garden until very late in the afternoon. Many times I'm finishing a project or gathering up my tools as the sun sets. As I wrap up my gardening chores, there's often a male Cardinal perched in a nearby tree singing.


Please see the Cornell Labs site for species details about range, behavior, nesting, etc.

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Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis)

Nature Notes: Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius)

Identification:  A medium-sized woodpecker, white strip running up its side and "messy" black and white barring on its back.  The throat and crown are completely red on a male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker while the female throat is white.  Both have a pale yellow underside.  (These are not very good ID photos.  Cornell Labs has much better.)




Range:  The Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker is the only woodpecker in eastern North America that is completely migratory.  Females tend to migrate farther south than males, often traveling as far south as Panama.  Here in the Ozarks, we are in the bird's winter range.

Food:  A sapsucker eats fruit and forages in tree bark for insects, but is most noted for consuming tree sap.  It bores distinctive rows of holes in tree trunks and limbs.  From these holes, it laps (not sucks) sap with its brush-like tongue.  In the summer, a sapsucker feeds on the “phloem” sap, the sticky fluid that carries the nutrients produced in the leaves downward to other parts of the tree.  This sap is much thicker and contains more nutrients than the “xylem” sap tapped by humans in the spring for making syrup.  Researchers speculate that a sapsucker's saliva contains some kind of anticoagulant that inhibits the tree from sealing over the holes and stopping the sap flow.  A sapsucker will often choose to tap a wounded or weakened tree.  The sap of these trees may contain more amino acids and proteins.  Many other birds and other critters partake of the sap flows created by sapsuckers. (The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center has much more information on Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers.)

Photo by Cephas via Wikipedia.

The White Birch above shows the distinctive rows of holes bored by a sapsucker.

The Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers overwintering here readily eat from our suet feeder.

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Nature Notes: Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius)

Downy Woodpecker - Female (Picoides pubescens)

At around 6 3/4" (17cm) long, the Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens) is the smallest of North America's classic-shaped woodpeckers.  It is found throughout almost all of North America in a variety of habitats.  The Downy is the woodpecker most likely to visit backyard feeders.  It is by far the most common woodpecker at our feeders here in the Arkansas Ozarks.


The Downy Woodpecker looks very similar to the Hairy Woodpecker, but the Hairy is larger -- around 9 1/4" (24cm) long.  The Hairy also has a proportionally larger bill, (usually almost equal to the depth of the head).  Finally, the outer tail feathers of the Downy usually have faint dark bars or spots while those on a Hairy are pure white.

 A male Downy Woodpecker has a red patch on the back of its head.  A juvenile has a red cap.

The Downy Woodpecker sharing our suet feeder with another "D" bird, a Dark-eyed Junco.

The Downy Woodpecker partaking of the pseudo-suet mixture of peanut butter, cornmeal and lard we provide.

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Downy Woodpecker - Female (Picoides pubescens)