February 13 2013. This morning’s sky was overcast with some threads of sunshine trying to find an opening. As I walked into the YMCA I heard the first real cardinal spring song coming from a garden a short distance away. It’s amazing what a few notes of “Tewww-tewww-tewww’ can do to a mid-winter morning.
This was a male Northern Cardinal responding to something telling him spring courtship is on the agenda and he had better stake out his home turf before someone else gets in ahead of him. Probably the cue was daylight length, we get nearly 12 hours of daylight now (ten and a half hours between sunrise and sunset). Time to get organized; and besides, tomorrow is St. Valentines’ Day, a sweetheart would be in order.
When we get a bright sunshiny day there will be more males vying for territories and while their clear songs may be heartwarming for us, for them it’s the start of a serious and often combative breeding season.