Jeff,

Female cardinals are known to sing from the nest while incubating their 
eggs. I've witnessed this.

"Birds of North America Online" has this to say:

"Males and females sing same repertoires of syllable types, and combine them 
into songs in same ways (Halkin 1997, and references therein), although 
females on nest occasionally give longer songs with more syllable 
types......"

Arlene Ripley
Calvert County, MD
http://nestbox.com
piwa99 at comcast dot net

Jeff Shenot wrote:

<snip>
................. I looked up at it and was surprised to see it was a 
FEMALE.  I know that =

some if not many bird species have female vocalizations, but I thought =

they are generally used for warning, scolding, assembly, or other such =

communication.  However, this female was singing the typical cardinal
repertoire used for territorial singing.  She repeated it over and over =

for ~4-5 minutes while I was standing there, but did stop when I moved to=

get a different view of her.  I wonder how many times have I heard the =

cardinal's territorial song and assumed it is from a male; I generally =

never think to confirm whether it is a male.  As I watched, I thought
maybe I had mis-sexed it and maybe it was a singing male that was somehow=

still in hatch year plumage.  No, it was clearly an adult female, an easy=

identification, and I wondered if I was just plain wrong in thinking that=

only males will sing on territory.  Or, if I am right - was this a very =

odd occurrence?
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Shenot" <>
To: <>
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 1:40 PM
Subject: [MDOSPREY] bird song surprise - female singing on territory?


This morning I decided as I was leaving for work to stop in the driveway =

and listen/scan the adjacent field at Mt Calvert, which was recently
plowed and seeded.  While I was scanning the field with my binoculars for=

horned larks or other less common field species (for here - P.G. County),=

I listened to see if I could hear anything unusual.  It was covered with =

birds, mostly with ~125 robins, 7-8 savannah sparrows, and a couple of =

kildeer and flickers.  No luck with uncommon species, but I must say that=

generally, the amount of birdsong (all over) was impressive.

Surprise: There was a cardinal blasting away with song from the mid heigh=
t
of a tall tree next to me, and when I finished scanning the field, I
looked up at it and was surprised to see it was a FEMALE.  I know that =

some if not many bird species have female vocalizations, but I thought =

they are generally used for warning, scolding, assembly, or other such =

communication.  However, this female was singing the typical cardinal
repertoire used for territorial singing.  She repeated it over and over =

for ~4-5 minutes while I was standing there, but did stop when I moved to=

get a different view of her.  I wonder how many times have I heard the =

cardinal's territorial song and assumed it is from a male; I generally =

never think to confirm whether it is a male.  As I watched, I thought
maybe I had mis-sexed it and maybe it was a singing male that was somehow=

still in hatch year plumage.  No, it was clearly an adult female, an easy=

identification, and I wondered if I was just plain wrong in thinking that=

only males will sing on territory.  Or, if I am right - was this a very =

odd occurrence?

Any thoughts?

Jeff Shenot
Croom MD