Nothing could have startled me more than realizing there was another orange Cardinal! I got more pictures, but I my camera was set wrong and the others didn’t come out, but at least I got one. You’ll have to trust me that she is most assuredly a lovely orange lady cardinal. I am going under the assumption that both of my orange cardinals came from a single nest. Either that, or we have a new breed of Cardinals growing up in our woods which would be fascinating and exciting, but I’ll go with the simpler explanation that both birds came from a single nest.
So here they are:
When I first saw Miss Lady Cardinal, I thought I was looking at a parrot. Such a big beak! And such a big bird! So what do you think? Are we breeding a new kind of Cardinal here in the woods of Uxbridge? Or are these from the same nest and whatever made the boy orange also made the girl orange? All birders, please throw in your vote! I would love to discover we’re breeding a whole new species of bird. That would be too cool.
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Categories: #Birds, #gallery, #Photography, Blackstone Valley, Nature, New England, Photo A Week Challenge, Wildlife
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
Just wait until they start breeding with the squirrels. You’ll get flying squirrels (with beaks) during the daytime as well!
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” There is no
evidence to explain the orange color in the feathers
of the orange variant cardinal. Speculation as to
what caused the Northern Cardinal to have
‘orange’ feathers could include dietary deficiency,
an enzyme deficiency, or even an aberrant change
in the structure of the feather pigment. ” This was part of a study done in Virginia, where they noticed some orange cardinals..Every piece I read said that orange cardinals are very rare.
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Well, the coloring seems to be genetically passed down because the babies are orange too. For a birder, this is high excitement 😀
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