We had several pairs of nesting cardinals, and have a bumper crop of young cardinals this year. We’ve been enjoying watching them mature.
Two weeks ago, you couldn’t tell the young males and females apart, but now you can.
The adolescent males are showing a lot of red. They are still a long way from the knock-your-socks-off brilliant crimson of a mature male, but they are displaying more, and brighter, reds every day. The females look more like their mothers, with coloring that ranges from light tan to reddish brown.
The one exception is a bird I’ve seen on the feeder several times, but never when there was a camera available. It looks like it has been rolling around in the ashes of our burning pile. Instead of plumage that goes from beige to tan to brown, this birds coloration ranges from pearl gray to charcoal – almost black.
It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 50 shades of gray.
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