Have You Ever Found a Cardinal's Nest?

What a surprise!

©

A pair of cardinals have been singing, chirping and tweeting 

for days, which has aroused our curiosity.

The female darts in and out of the tree
where the nest is neatly tucked away and very hard to find!

And here is the male watching over the whole situation!  Once the young are born the male usually takes over the feeding and care of the chicks and the female is off to build a new nest so they can have multiple broods a year.  But in this case the female and male both have been doing the feeding.

After listening and watching for hours, we make the discovery!
A cardinal's nest with two chicks. 

The discovery wasn't made early enough to see the eggs and know how long that they had been in the nest.   As they only are in the nest 9 to 11 days after hatching, the first chick had to be that old because it fledged the nest the next morning.

This cardinal's nest is in the thickest tree possible--very hard to get pictures. They live in inhabited areas like parks, woodlots, shrubby forest edges and right in your own backyard.  And the cardinals are frequent visitors of the backyard feeders!

The Northern cardinal is a long-tailed songbird with a short, very thick bill and a distinguishing crest. 

Guess you are wondering if this really is a baby cardinal!

It doesn't look much like the beautiful parents at this point, but the parents are taking care of the chicks.  The chicks are not so easy to identify as cardinals because they do not exhibit the distinctive traits of the adults.

This chick was about 3 to 4 days behind the other chick since it was still in the nest.
They are born with a pink skin and grayish scales, and once they begin to molt their feathers will be a tan color.

The chicks have unusually large beady eyes and large eye sockets like many lizards.

The baby cardinal's mouth is red on the inside, the only red you can see....

©