Cardinals stand out in a colorless season

Just as leaves began falling in our back yards, northern cardinals were showing off their new plumage for the coming year.

In late August, the brilliant red males and warm brown females started to replace their feathers in a shedding and replacement process called molting.

The birds do this gradually, ensuring that feather loss never impairs their ability to fly or keep out the cold. (Young birds complete their molt into adult plumage sometime during the winter.)

The new plumage may lack that brilliant cardinal red because the new feathers have gray tips. These wear away in the months ahead, as birds brush into branches or huddle in shrubbery, and male cardinals gradually become redder and redder. By springtime's breeding season, the red bird is truly the vibrant color that endears them to so many.

I tend to think of cardinals as conservative birds, slow to make changes and try new things. They're not early adopters, the way chickadees are, but are more deliberative and careful in all their actions. So the two times I observed a cardinal doing something out of the ordinary were surprising, even shocking:

Last fall a male cardinal in my back yard fluttered, a bit like a hummingbird, in front of a hosta plant, just 18 inches off the ground. He carefully plucked the large, black seeds out of each of the plant's pods and dropped to the ground to eat them.

In another unexpected incident, a cardinal flashed out of a dogwood shrub to snatch up a butterfly, and then perched to strip off its wings before swallowing the insect.

(I can attest to the high pressure applied by those big beaks: Some years ago, as a volunteer at a wildlife clinic, I was attempting to administer medication to an injured cardinal. The bird clamped down on my finger instead of the syringe, causing a triangular, purple bruise that lasted for weeks.)

Those large, conical beaks look as if they could crack open a walnut, but cardinals use them to snatch up the much thinner-shelled black-oil sunflower seeds or safflower seeds.

Some readers worry about cardinals hopping around on the ground under their feeders, but this is perfectly normal behavior: Cardinals naturally feed on the ground and indeed, have to learn that feeders offer food. They observe bird traffic at feeders and eventually decide to try it themselves. They prefer tray and hopper-type feeders, since these offer a flat surface for feeding.

Late fall and winter may be the best times for viewing this beloved bird. By the end of summer, cardinals have wrapped up nesting duties for the year and no longer have to dash around gathering food throughout the day. Instead, they have more time for perching and keeping an eye on things, thus are more visible to us humans.

Without spring's hormonal push, cardinals relax their strong urge to defend a territory and may join with other cardinals and even other kinds of birds on their daily foraging route. It's not unusual to see a group of cardinals hopping on top of the snow, snatching up seed that falls from feeders. One cold December day some years back I watched the jaw-dropping spectacle as cardinal after cardinal dropped down from a pine tree to assemble under my feeders, a grouping that eventually numbered 14 brilliant birds.

Winter can be a drab season, soundless and colorless. But then a cardinal flies in, giving a vibrant boost to any scene. And early in the new year they'll begin singing their sprightly songs, with a male whistling "wha-cheer, wha-cheer" and a female replying in kind. Yes, cardinals are a joy to behold whatever the season.

St. Paul resident Val Cunningham, who volunteers with the St. Paul Audubon Society and writes about nature for local, regional and national newspapers and magazines, can be reached at valwrites@comcast.net.

Here are some tips for attracting cardinals to your back yard:

• Fill tray or platform feeders with black-oil sunflower or safflower seed.

• Plant shrubs and small trees for these tangle-loving birds.

• Provide shelter in the form of evergreens or thickly planted shrubbery.