Pink Cardinals???

[msj]

I saw a lovely pink cardinal this morning. It was coming out of my burning bush. I’ve seen a lot of the normal red cardinals but I’ve never seen one that was pink. I guess you could say maybe a red roan-a lot of white and red feathers giving it a lovely pink shade. The shape of the head was definitely cardinal.

Could this be a young cardinal or a mutant or what?

[hoopoe]

sounds like a leucystic bird

it happens in many species, and can be used to identify individuals

see Leucism in Wiki

[msj]

Thanks hoopoe.

[dkcbr]

Interesting about the leucystic birds! Never heard of that! I was jumping to conclusion that it was a faded female.

[msj]

Well, I thought it was maybe a very young male that hadn’t gotten his full color.

He actually looked like a strawberry roan.

[cayuse]

I have a family of cardinals living close to the house, all the male youngsters are a odd color, almost as you describe but without the white. I would call it a dull pink.

[Cherry]

Never saw a pink cardinal but I have seen a picture of a yellow cardinal in a magazine. I was so enthralled I bought the magazine just for the picture…

[SusanO]

That is interesting about the yellow cardinal. My sister says she has one at her house and she believes it is a female. It wasn’t around when I was visiting and she has never photographed it so I don’t know exactly what it looks like.

[Gamma]

Looked it up (scroll down in the page past some junk at the top). Does that look like yours? I think they also decided he was leucystic.

Yellow cardinal–these are a separate thing, rare but not unheard of!

I love sitting and watching the bird feeder for whatever unusual flies through…but somehow we mostly get wrens and more wrens and then some sparrows.

[msj]

Gamma, yes to a degree but I didn’t see the grey on the wings like I see on the pink ones in the pics.

The yellow cardinals are absolutely gorgeous, but then I like yellow more than I do pink!