-
Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.
Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
Orange Cardinal? (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter bamabluebird
- Start date
michaelmacey
D'oh
Thats a nice looking bird, its certainly rare here, iv never seen 1. What was it doing to make you think there was something wrong with it?
bitterntwisted
Graham Howard Shortt
michaelmacey said:
It's a fairly common North American bird, Michael, but it's a funny colour. They're 'supposed' to look like this: http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/showphoto.php/photo/131142/sort/1/cat/all/page/1
Graham
michaelmacey
D'oh
Blimey, theres a fair bit of difference to the one shown above. Perhaps its a hybred, or just a little off colour?????
bamabluebird
Well-known member
yep, the color is way off. all of my other male cardinal are as red as can be! so i was wondering if there is something genetically wrong with him that would cause him to be orange or what?
bamabluebird
Well-known member
if this is molting, then should i see more signs of the others molting as well? i'm not familiar with the molting season of cardinals, so i wasn't sure if this the time of year for this or not.
Hmmm... that is a good question bamabluebird. And I have to say I am no help in this regard - one impression I do get is - with the flight feathers he kind of looks immature - know what I am saying , with the almost female like colors - I dont know - I kind of wish Overworkedirish alex would shine some light -:stuck:bamabluebird said:
Robert / Seattle
Well-known member
The pigments producing reds and yellows in birds are biochemically closely related, and every so often a slight molecular shift can result in a color change. Look at red House Finches in your field guide, for example, which happens to be a close relative of the Cardinal. You'll notice that there is a not too uncommon yellow "variant". We've had a few at our feeder this year, and some actually appear more orange than yellow.
Your Cardinal is healthy. Just happens to be at the other end of the gene pool.
Your Cardinal is healthy. Just happens to be at the other end of the gene pool.
Robert / Seattle
Well-known member
JMomOhio said:
The mask is male patterned. Perhaps a late blooming juvenile.
Robert, I think you were correct in your first response. Looks like a color pigmentation problem. I've seen a lot of juveniles and none have had this orange tinge. It doesn't really look like the female colors either - this one is more "orangey" than the females. And as you said - definitely a male with that mask.
bitterntwisted
Graham Howard Shortt
As well as melanism and leucism, birds can exhibit other genetic pigment deficiencies, which could produce something like this bird. Also, female birds that lose or have malfunctioning ovaries acquire male plumage characteristics but may not be 'convincingly' male. I am just speculating - both are very rare phenomena of which I have little experience - but they are the only explanations I know of for this kind of appearance.
Graham
EDIT: Post #11 of this thread has an excellent summary of plumage anomalies: http://birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=3799 This bird seems to fit the bill for carotenoid leucism?
Graham
EDIT: Post #11 of this thread has an excellent summary of plumage anomalies: http://birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=3799 This bird seems to fit the bill for carotenoid leucism?
Last edited:
bamabluebird
Well-known member
A friend of mine told just called and I sent him to this page. He is familiar to some extent with carotenoids in birds and he said that red birds synthesize from dietary carotenoids either deep red pigments (astaxanthin, canthaxanthin, etc) which is typical for the Cardinal, while in others, such as the house finch mentioned above, intermediate red pigments are made, such as 3-hydroxy-echinenone and echinenone (no chemistry needed, these latter pigments are less red then deep red pigments). Also there is a mutant cardinal with only yellow feathers in a Louisisanna museum (on the web) and so cardinals can produce yellow feathers as well.
Perhaps metabolically this orange cardinal is only producing small amounts of deep red, or perhaps more intermediate red (a mutation or other anomoly) and perhaps a little yellow as well (which would not be normal). Since he is the only cardinal this color I have seen here I assume it is not diet related. So, probably, as my friend suggested, a metabolic anomoly (should trap him and get a feather for analysis, eh?)
Perhaps metabolically this orange cardinal is only producing small amounts of deep red, or perhaps more intermediate red (a mutation or other anomoly) and perhaps a little yellow as well (which would not be normal). Since he is the only cardinal this color I have seen here I assume it is not diet related. So, probably, as my friend suggested, a metabolic anomoly (should trap him and get a feather for analysis, eh?)
bamabluebird
Well-known member
One more note. As mentioned above, if during molt a bird becomes sick etc, it will not have additional energy to produce high levels of pigments and so this could represent a bird who experienced sickness during molt (just a thought - my friend had mentioned this as well).
bamabluebird
Well-known member
for grins and giggles (yes I love austin powers!! :hippy: ) my friend did a little more searching and found some photos of birds that are orange when they are normally very red. his theory is that red colors are very expensive energy wise to make. so if for some reason the bird is unable to expend the energy to create the red color, he create orange (or yellow) which take less energy. he threw together a list of photos of several species, the red color on the left and the orange color (of the same species) on the right. click here to see the list.
bamabluebird
Well-known member
sadly, i haven't seen my orange cardinal in a couple of weeks now. i don't know if he got picked off by a hawk or if he's moved on to another location. we keep hoping to see him again.
