As you begin Valentine’s Day, listen for the cheery song of the northern cardinal. The crimson-colored male bespeaks sweetheart’s day like no other bird, and its courtship with the female cardinal is ...

Spring sometimes motivates me to get up at an hour that seems totally unreasonable at any other time of year. And so, when I stepped outside at 5 a.m., I was surprised to be greeted by the ...

Winter is fading, spring is coming, and birds are singing. The distinctive songs of eastern meadowlarks roll across prairies surrounding our metropolis. The males perch on fence lines, fence poles and ...

I once assumed that every singing bird I heard was a male. As any bird lover knows, male songbirds sing lustily in spring to attract females and defend territory. About the only exception, I thought, ...

New research suggests that populations of the Northern Cardinal -- one of the most ubiquitous backyard birds in the United States -- are undergoing speciation in two adjacent deserts. This study, ...

Feb 10, 2018 Feb 10, 2018 Updated Dec 28, 2022 One common backyard bird that may be taken for granted also has romantic attributes worthy of Valentine’s Day. In the brown bleakness of mid-winter, the ...

Myriad bird species will be flying through northern Illinois in the next couple of months, filling the region with bird songs as they fly to their northern breeding grounds or establish nesting spots ...

Holiday images of cardinals on everything from greeting cards to table napkins are so common that the cardinal has been dubbed the “Christmas bird.” I can’t count the number of holiday greeting cards ...

The longer winter goes on, with its monochrome palette, leafless branches and profound silence, the more we appreciate the brilliantly red Northern cardinal. Cardinals visit our backyards and feeders ...