Cardinal, the state bird of Kentucky

How to recognize it

The cardinal is about the size of a robin, eight to nine inches long, with a long tail, a pointed crest and a heavy, cone-shaped bill. The male is bright red all over, with a black face around a red bill. The female is duller and brownish, with the same crest, long tail and heavy pinkish bill. Young cardinals start out with dark bills.

Cardinals are easy to hear. Their song is a loud, clear series of whistles, often written as what-cheer, cheer, cheer or purty-purty-purty, and both males and females sing. Their call is a sharp, metallic chip.

How it lives

Cardinals eat mostly seeds, insects and berries, feeding while hopping on the ground or in low shrubs, and they readily come to feeders for sunflower seeds. Nestlings are fed mostly insects. Pairs hide their nests in dense shrubs or vines, three to ten feet up, and raise two or three broods a year.

Where to see one in Kentucky

Cardinals do not migrate, so they can be seen all year across Kentucky, in backyards, parks and brushy woodland edges. They are easiest to spot in winter, when the red males stand out against bare branches or gather at seed feeders.

Thriving

The northern cardinal is one of North America’s most common backyard birds, with an estimated 130 million birds, and its population is stable. It lives across eastern North America and north into southeastern Canada.

The Kentucky cardinal

Kentucky adopted the cardinal in 1926, three years before Illinois and before any other state. The law, now KRS 2.080, calls it “the native redbird, commonly known as the Kentucky cardinal,” using only the genus name, Cardinalis; the species is the northern cardinal. Kentucky honors the bird in another way too: under the state flag law, the flagstaff that flies the Kentucky flag should be topped with a cast cardinal. The University of Louisville’s teams are the Cardinals, named for the state bird.