A bird of North American woodland edges and thickets. Males are bright red and females mainly brown with red accents; both have crests.
Adults have thick orange-red bills. Males have black facial markings; young birds have gray-black bills.
Female Northern Cardinals also sing. A 1986 study in central Kentucky examined their songs. Researchers combined field observations and playback experiments to record when females sang and whether they responded to recorded song. In observations, females sang mostly after males had established territories and before nesting, from early March to mid-May. A female’s mate often joined her song.
The experiments played male and female songs, but females rarely sang in response. The authors suggested that female song may help form pairs and synchronize reproduction. This study focused on female song before nesting.
IUCN Red List · Least Concern (LC) · Global
The 2018 global IUCN Red List assessment classifies the Northern Cardinal as Least Concern (LC). It was assessed on 9 August 2018, and its population trend is listed as stable.