Pyrrhuloxia

Overview

The pyrrhuloxia, or desert cardinal (Cardinalis sinuatus), is a medium-sized North American songbird found in the American southwest and northern Mexico. This distinctive species with a short, stout bill, red crest, and red wings closely resembles the northern cardinal and the vermilion cardinal, which are in the same genus.

Identification

• Medium-sized songbird approximately 21 cm long, weighing between 24–43 g.
• Predominantly brownish-grey plumage with a red breast, red mask, and a distinctive long, pointed red crest.
• Stout, rounded, yellow parrot-like bill, which serves as a diagnostic feature when distinguishing from similar species.
• Singing a sharp, clear "wha-cheer, wha-cheer" or a metallic "quink", though slightly less loud than the northern cardinal.

Habitat

The pyrrhuloxia is a year-round resident of desert scrub and mesquite thickets, preferring habitats along stream beds. Its range covers the southwestern half of Texas, the southern third of New Mexico, the southeastern region of Arizona, and woodland edges in Mexico north of the Sierra Madre del Sur and Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt. This cardinal is relatively nonmigratory, though it may occasionally stray slightly north of its usual range.

Diet

The pyrrhuloxia's diet consists of seeds, fruits, and insects, including cactus fruit. While foraging, the desert cardinal snatches insects from trees and picks seeds predominantly from the stalks of grasses and similar plants. In winter, it forages in huge flocks, sometimes numbering in the thousands, and also visits bird feeders.

Did you know?

The name pyrrhuloxia was suggested as a portmanteau of the bullfinch genus Pyrrhula and the crossbill genus Loxia because the ornithologist Charles Lucien Bonaparte imagined the bird was an intermediate between the two. Unlike the northern cardinal, the pyrrhuloxia's populations appear to be in a slight decline as large areas of its habitat in its northern range have been lost to humans.