WHAT BIRD SONG IS THIS?

It wasn't just a nesting skunk I had on my mind over the weekend...

Now that SPRING has SPRUNG, all the wildlife is busy, presumably, getting ready to find mates. With that, comes bird songs. Please play the video below (be sure to turn off the volume on my playlist to the right) and listen to a particularly loud bird who kept singing as I painted my house's exterior. Any guesses as to what it is?

I recall doing my weather from our weather terrace last year and I think there was a similar bird song in the background that I commented about on the air. I might be mistaken, but if it was the same song as the one above, then I think a local birder emailed me that it was the Cardinal's "warning song" . I searched around the internet to try to listen to Cardinal songs and found some similar songs, but nothing matched this one above exactly.

I like how people string together words that sound like the song to help identify it. One woman wrote (somewhere...can't remember where I saw this) that she heard the "CHEER CHEER CHEER PRETTY PRETTY PRETTY" Cardinal song. So far, this is the closest Onomatopoeia I can find (I think that is the first time I have used "Onomatopoeia" in a sentence in 20 years!)

So, I'm going with Cardinal for my guess. What is yours?

Did you know?

• The female Northern Cardinal usually sings (from the nest) to the male? She might give information about what kind of food to bring back -- "Hey honey, can you stop by the grocery store and pick up some skim milk?" (That is how my song with Ben might sound -- but I might add to it -- "Don't forget the Pepperidge Farm Saulsalito cookies, too!" -- that would be my more complicated song.)



• The male cardinal is the brighter red colored one. The female only has reddish areas on her tail and wings and is overall a tan color. Turns out that the more vivid red the male is, the better chances he has of reproducing as he can hold territories with denser vegetation (I guess he stands out more!)