{"id":8517,"date":"2026-06-20T15:31:44","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T22:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/?p=8517"},"modified":"2026-06-20T15:31:44","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T22:31:44","slug":"juvenile-male-cardinal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/20\/juvenile-male-cardinal\/","title":{"rendered":"Juvenile Male Cardinal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/vernabob.com\/graphics\/imageview.php?image=http:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260620-juvenile-male-cardinal.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260620-juvenile-male-cardinal.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8518\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260620-juvenile-male-cardinal.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260620-juvenile-male-cardinal-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260620-juvenile-male-cardinal-768x512.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I asked <a href=\"https:\/\/grok.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">SuperGrok<\/a> to identify this bird:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This is a juvenile (first-year) Northern Cardinal, likely a young male.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Age: The bill is dark\/grayish, which is a key juvenile trait. Adults have bright orange-red bills. Juveniles also tend to have slightly looser plumage and less intense colors overall.<\/li>\n<li>Sex: Young males often show more red in the crest, wings, and tail than females at this stage, and they&#8217;re starting to develop the warmer reddish tones seen here. Females stay browner longer. The amount of red on the crest and body in your shots points toward male.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These birds molt into more adult-like plumage over their first fall\/winter, so this one is probably in that transitional &#8220;formative&#8221; stage right now in mid-June. Cardinals at the feeder are always a treat in our Arizona garden! <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If we spot this bird after the first of next year, he will probably look like his Dad (below), seen &#8220;hiding&#8221; in the nearby mesquite tree out back. Click on either image to enlarge.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/vernabob.com\/graphics\/imageview.php?image=http:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260620-adult-male-cardinal.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260620-adult-male-cardinal.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1200\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8521\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260620-adult-male-cardinal.jpg 800w, https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260620-adult-male-cardinal-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260620-adult-male-cardinal-768x1152.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I asked SuperGrok to identify this bird: This is a juvenile (first-year) Northern Cardinal, likely a young male. Age: The bill is dark\/grayish, which is a&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,12,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arizona","category-critters","category-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8517"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8524,"href":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8517\/revisions\/8524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vernabob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}