Northern Cardinal
Cardinalis cardinalis
Northern Cardinal · Prospect Park · 14 December 2025
A Northern Cardinal in the snow in Prospect Park in December. Cardinals are birds of the thickets and woodland edges of the eastern United States, and they do not migrate and do not moult into a dull winter plumage, which is why they are the one bright thing in a snowbound wood.
The red is carotenoid, drawn from the fruit they eat, and a male that has fed well is redder than one that has not. They were a southern bird until the twentieth century, when winter feeding, suburban shrubbery and a warming climate let them spread steadily north. Much of their present range is a habitat people made without meaning to.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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