Today, May 8, in the early afternoon, a male Northern Cardinal repeatedly fed a recently fledged juvenile cardinal in the backyard here in the village area of Norwich, VT. The male placed his beak carrying the unidentified food down inside the widely opened beak of the young bird. The rather dull-colored young cardinal still had enlarged light-colored flanges around the base of the beak, a sign of a bird not long out of the nest. This juvenile, seen both while perched and in flight, seemed likely to have left the nest only a few days ago. 

An adult female cardinal was also present in the vicinity, but no other juvenile cardinals were seen.

Assuming a 12 day incubation period and a 10 day nestling period, and then adding a speculative three days for time since leaving the nest, incubation at the nest from which the juvenile fledged might have begun 25 days ago, which would have been around April 13. Regardless of the unknown exact details of timing, this nesting was apparently relatively early in the season for locations in the Upper Valley.

In addition to feeding the juvenile, the male cardinal repeatedly seemed to be deliberately chasing a sparrow, probably one or more of the White-throated Sparrows present, out of the shrubbery in which the young cardinal was perched. This chasing might be interpreted as protecting the young bird, but it is unclear how sparrows could have been a threat to the young cardinal which was substantially larger than the sparrows.

George Clark
Norwich, VT


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