Whit! Whit!
Whit! Whit!
Cheer! Cheer!
Cheer! Cheer!
Birdie! Birdie! Birdie!
Breaker! Breaker! Breaker!
In the closing days of February, I heard a Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) singing once or twice as I went outside. As we have moved into March and the season has been progressing, I have heard the singing with increasing regularity, although I haven’t been able to get a photo of the bird until today. This morning as I went out to the barn, there he was, singing his heart out from a tree top near the barn. I rushed back to the house for my camera and was finally able to get a shot of this beautiful singer.
At our former home in the Toronto area, cardinals were common birds. Such is not the case here, south of Ottawa. There has been a pair visiting the bird feeder sporadically over the winter, but cardinals are not an everyday sight. I’ve really missed them, especially since they begin singing their territorial love song early in the spring. The calls are easy to identify, once you become familiar with the singer. Before I connected the song with its source, I used to wish that the bird calling “Birdie! Birdie! Birdie!” would be a bit more specific about his identity.
I hope that the morning serenade I enjoyed today will become a daily event and the singer and his missus will nest nearby. Birdgirl wrote an interesting and informative entry about cardinals in “All Dressed in Red“. Fly on over to The Marvelous in Nature for more information on these eye-catching birds.
Willow House Chronicles 