Missing mask

Photo Submission

Submitted By

Linda Stolar

Chittenango, NY, USA

Description

We noticed this unusual male cardinal 1/11/19. This photo was taken 1/21/19. Both sides have a small brown patch near the beak.
I chatted with Anne Marie Johnson with Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Project FeederWatch and this was her response, “I’m not sure what’s going on with this cardinal. Juveniles typically look similar to females, whereas this bird has more red in the face than is normal rather than less. There’s a brown patch between the eye and the bill, and there could be a skin condition there that has prevented some feathers from coming in, but that doesn’t explain why there is no black above the bill between the eyes. It may be a young bird that experienced a bit of a molt abnormality when it molted to adult feathers, but it is definitely odd.”
This bird definitely caught our eye!