But the female cardinal does have a crest. ... Plumage is a term that refers to the characteristics of a bird's feathers. Shown here is the normal plumage of an adult northern cardinal.

Q Lately I've seen a mangy-looking female cardinal at my Roseville feeder. She's missing neck feathers and has a scraggly crest. She's sometimes accompanied by a male without any feathers on its head.

As it turns out, the easiest way to tell the difference between a male and female cardinal lies in the bird's coloring. As is ...

A female and male northern cardinal. | Diana Cooper/GettyImages. For the remainder of this article, we’ll be focusing on the northern cardinal, the most famous species in the United States.But ...

There are two types of cardinals: the spring, summer and fall cardinals—and they are beautiful—and there are the winter cardinals—and they are spectacular.

At the end of January, I heard a northern cardinal sing. Birdy, birdy, birdy. What cheer, cheer, cheer. A crimson-red male sat at the top of the tree and sent out his advertisement to a nearby female.

Peggy Guthrie of rural Long Grove, Iowa, snapped this photo of an unusual female northern cardinal sitting in her weeping mulberry tree. I forwarded it to Steve Hager, an associate professor of ...

Northern cardinal fun facts: The northern cardinal is the official bird of seven different states, including North Carolina. The oldest known cardinal was a female who lived for 15 years and 9 months.