One winter day we counted 38 Cardinals in the backyard after a blustery snow storm. And to see a dozen or more Cardinals is a sight not to be forgotten soon. The sheer beauty of a pair of Cardinals in a snow covered tree or bush is a sight to be hold. to support conservation of Yellow Cardinals in South America.The Northern Cardinal has to be considered the most sought after bird to attract to the bird feeder. Maybe we could figure out a way for fans of yellow cardinals in the U.S. It’s not at all related (it belongs to the tanager family), and far from being abundant, it’s considered an endangered species, with a population in the low thousands at best. But there is a South American bird actually named the Yellow Cardinal ( Gubernatrix cristata ). Its population has been estimated at more than 100 million, and stable or increasing. But the Northern Cardinal is one of the more abundant birds in North America. Is there a conservation angle to this story? It’s always a good thing when people pay more attention to birds, of course. What would have merited a shrug and a “Hmm, that’s funny” in the past had now been anointed as worthy of note, worth sharing on social media. Stephenson and Black even created a Facebook page celebrating this individual.Īnd as the fame of this cardinal spread, and the public became aware of its special status, other people started reporting that they had seen such birds as well. After Charlie Stephenson discovered the bird and Jeremy Black took supe rb photos, it became an internet sensation, with photos shared tens of thousands of times. That was what happened w ith the Alabama yellow cardinal in 2018. An unusual bird now can “go viral” if it captures the imagination of the public. Communication about birds had already ramped up considerably in the 1990s with the advent of birding listserves, and now it has multiplied many times over with the rise of social media. Today the world is connected like never before. And that was standard for odd birds at backyard feeders until very recently. No photos, no press coverage, no media attention. A friend of mine saw the note in the newsletter and happened to mention it to me. Someone had seen such a bird at their feeder and mentioned it to a neighbor, and ultimately a local Audubon chapter newsletter carried a few lines about this odd bird. The first time I heard about a yellow cardinal, about 40 years ago, it was through a string of coincidences. But are such birds really occurring more often in the total cardinal population? O r are we just hearing about more of them? Although it’s impossible to be certain, I strongly suspect it’s the latter. In a very rare genetic mutation, probably affecting fewer than one in a million cardinals, that enzyme is lacking, so the conversion to red doesn’t occur and the feathers are bright yellow instead.ĭuring the last couple of years, we’ve seen reports of such yellow Northern Cardinals in Florida, Illinois, Tennessee, North Carolina, and elsewhere. In the male Northern Cardinal, yellow pigments from the diet apparently are converted to red by a specific enzyme. Basically, the red, orange, and yellow colors in birds’ feathers are created with carotenoid pigments derived from the foods they eat. Hill has since released a video discussing the science behind this variation. At the time, birders consulted Geoffrey Hill from Auburn University, an expert on bird coloration, for insights on why this bird was yel low. Such variants do occur, but they are very rare.Īudubon featured a story about one such cardinal spotted in Alabama in 2018. Kenn Kaufman: When the brilliant red of a male Northern Cardinal is replaced by brilliant yellow, the effect can be stunning for anyone accustomed to the bird’s normal appearance.
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