Jeremy Black, an Alabama wedding
and wildlife photographer, spent almost five hours in a friend’s back yard in
the optimism of capturing an image of what he called “the most captivating
cardinal in Alabaster, Alabama.” The northern cardinal that Black ended up
photographing was not the usual deep red of males but dazzlingly yellow. It
could easily claim to be the most captivating bird in the nation. The yellow
cardinal “Gubernatrix cristata” is a species of bird in the family Thraupidae.
It is the only member of its genus, Gubernatrix. The term "yellow
cardinal" or "yellow morph" may also describe a northern
cardinal which is yellow because it lacks the usual enzyme which converts
yellow pigments in food to the red pigments in the feathers of most of its
species. Sightings are rare.
Black’s photo, which was shared
on the Facebook page of the Naturalist’s Notebook, promptly went viral. As soon as it landed, I was star-struck, took
my breath away a little bit. Initially I thought it was a species of yellow
bird she had never seen before. Then he realized that the creature, with its
black mask and crested head, looked just like a cardinal just one of a
different color. This coloration is not unique, but it is aberrant, according
to a 2003 research paper on what at the time was said to be the first-ever
reported yellow northern cardinal in the United States. Researchers who studied
its feathers concluded that the bird had a genetic mutation that impaired the
metabolic processes that normally make red feathers out of the carotenoid-rich
yellow and orange foods in a male cardinal’s diet.
It’s a one in a million mutation,
had never seen a live yellow cardinal in 40 years of birdwatching. Rare though
they are, yellow northern cardinals seem a bit more common with the advent of
digital cameras and social media. A pair was spotted in Kentucky in 2011. It is
estimated that in any given year there are two or three yellow cardinals at
backyard feeding stations somewhere in the U.S. or Canada. There are probably a
million bird feeding stations in that area so very roughly; yellow cardinals
are a one in a million mutation.
