One of the most beloved birds, the Northern Cardinal is a bird that can be identified easily by most people. Did you know that it is the state bird for seven states? The states included are Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia. Cardinals are a great guest to any backyard because they do not migrate but instead stay throughout all of the seasons. They have the most lovely calls and show their rich red feathers, for male, and beautiful burnt orange feathers, for female, throughout all of the seasons as well. They inhabit a large portion of North American from the Yucatan Peninsula to the Southern tip of Canada.
One of the best portions of Burgess’ description of Glory comes when discussing his fatherly duties:
‘I’ve noticed,’ said Peter, ‘that people with fine clothes spend most of their time thinking about them and are of very little use when it comes to real work in life.’
‘Well, you needn’t think that of Glory,’ declared Jenny in her vigorous way. ‘He’s just as fine as he is handsome. He’s a model husband. If they make their home around here you’ll find him doing his full share in the care of their babies. Sometimes they raise two families. When they do that, Glory takes charge of the first lot of youngsters as soon as they are able to leave the nest so that Mrs. Cardinal has nothing to worry about while she is sitting on the second lot of eggs. He fusses over them as if they were the only children in the world. Everybody loves Glory.”
Jenny Wren and Peter Rabbit, Thornton W. Burgess, The Burgess Bird Book for Children, Living Book Press Edition, p. 136.
One of my favorite memories from our backyard is looking out to our large platform feeder and seeing a male cardinal take care of his young cardinals and a young cowbird that had obviously been adopted. Find more about that here: Sally Sly.
To hear one of Glory’s beautiful calls, you can listen here:
American Bird Conservancy on Youtube. Have you heard this call before?
Here is what we gathered about Glory:
Until next time, keep on birding! <3 Kate
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