Cardinals

 

Probably the most colorful birds here at the Boggy Thicket are the Cardinals – Cardinalis cardinalis – and I came across a couple of interesting factoids about them that you may not know.

For example - the female, while not nearly as brilliantly feathered as the male, is one of the few species of North American songbirds in which the female sings.  Mated pairs sometimes share songs, but the female often sings longer and more complex songs than her male counterpart.

A cardinal’s eggs take less than two weeks to hatch, and the baby birds leave the nest when they are about two weeks old.  Parents may continue to feed them for another 50 days or so, but they kick them out of the nest in a hurry.

Back in the 1800s, there was wide spread trapping of Cardinals in the Southern US during the winter.  They were then shipped north for sale as cage birds.   Passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 ended this trade and the use of cardinals as caged pets.