The Northern Cardinal is one of the most charismatic of North American birds. The red color of the male is endlessly featured on winter postcards and Christmas decorations, partly because they stick around in the winter and are commonly seen at feeders. There are many different subspecies, with mostly small clinal differences. There are two groupings on eBird, separating most Cardinal subspecies from the Long-crested variants seen in Mexico.
Birds of the World (Halkin and Linville 2020) use the nominate subspecies, Cardinalis cardinalis cardinalis, as their basis for the main description; this is also the bird presumed to be seen most commonly in Vermont. Of the cardinalis group, which includes four subspecies in their description (but which is mixed in with sixteen other subspecies for the eBird grouping), they write:
Female face-mask grayish; male crest much duller red than breast.
Pyle (1997) writes of the Eastern Cardinal:
Variably small; ... crest short; ... bill medium small; ... upperparts and edges of the rects washed brownish-olive; brown wash to the underparts of ♀♀ rarely extends to the belly; plumage of ♂♂ bright, medium to deep red
For identification on eBird, the question becomes less of one identifying down to the subspecies, and more down to the grouping. Of the only other grouping, the Northern Cardinal (Long-crested) Cardinalis cardinalis carneus, Halkin and Linville (2020) write:
Upper mandible shallower than that of any other subspecies, with less sinuated tomia; crest feathers longer and stiffer than those of other subspecies, and distinctly outlined, giving crest edges a jagged appearance, similar to Vermilion Cardinal (Cardinalis phoeniceus) of South America; female face mask black.
On females, a face mask for the Eastern Cardinal should't be entirely black: "Face-mask dull grayish, sometimes nearly white on throat; surrounds bill but is smaller and less distinct than that of male." (Halkin and Linville 2020)
The crest "jaggedness", mandible depth, and tomia sinuation may be harder to judge in the field.
To date, there are no records of other subspecies in Vermont. The record listed when this page was created was the first photographic record of the Eastern Cardinal in Vermont at the time of posting.
Nomenclature:
Salient identification points:
Example Records:
Local subspecies records:
Needs:
These needs reflect eBird's database, and whether the bird has photos, audio, or sightings in a given area. "None" denotes that this species has been satisfactorily documented.