Cottage Q&A
QUESTIONLast summer, a male cardinal regularly perched by the side mirror of a car parked behind the cottage and pecked at its reflection. We have been cottaging here for more than 40 years and have never seen this before. Is this unusual behaviour for a cardinal?
ANSWER
Cardinals aren't Einsteins. "He sees his reflection, believes it is an intruder into his territory, and so he keeps going back to fight the rival - day after day," says Michel Gosselin, collections manager at the Canadian Museum of Nature. What the northern cardinal lacks in grey matter is offset by its visual acuity. "Cardinals have increased sensitivity to the colours yellow and red," explains Mark Peck, an ornithologist at the Royal Ontario Museum. So they zone in quickly on that rich plumage reflected in the side mirror and see, well?red.
Cardinals are particularly prone to this behaviour, although robins have been known to do it as well. That's probably because both species often nest near humans, and are therefore more likely than other birds to encounter windows and mirrors, says Peck. Since cardinals hop about looking for food, they are also prone to perching by a car side mirror by chance while rummaging for seeds or insects, something their feathered brethren who feed in the trees won't do. Cardinals are also year-round residents, explains Gosselin. They may raise more than one family during their breeding season from early April to late September, unlike many migratory birds that leave by early August. Since the cardinal's breeding season is longer, they exhibit territorial behaviour for a longer stretch than migrating species. Once a cardinal associates the mirror with another male, it will frequently return, sometimes for weeks, until something distracts it or it moves out of the territorial phase. "I've had calls from people who have a cardinal rap at their window every morning - at 5 a.m.," says Audrey Heagy, a land bird conservationist at Bird Studies Canada. "They find it somewhat annoying."
* Published in the April/May 2006 issue of Cottage Life
