The northern cardinal, Cardinal cardinalis, brightens up our winter days. Few things are more colorful than a brilliant red male cardinal with his red crest, large red bill, and black mask perching in a deep green holly tree that is covered with red berries.
Cardinals express sexual dimorphism—females have smaller crests and are a reddish-orange-olive color. While not spectacular, their coloring is also showy. Some of the other birds in their family, Cardinalidae, are also extremely colorful, like the rose breasted grosbeak, indigo and painted buntings, and summer and scarlet tanagers.
Those fickle family members are gone from Arkansas now, wintering far to the south. But cardinals do not migrate. They remain year-round, gracing our yards with their scarlet presence.