Northern Cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis) often sport a Mohawk-style crest, but this female that I spotted last Thursday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge seemed to have applied some extra gel to make her “hair” stand tall. Her outlandish look and defiant attitude make me think of a punk rocker. I looked closely at her body, expecting to see tattoos and body piercings, but as far as I could tell, there were none.
Rock on, my little punk rock cardinal, rock on.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
😂 Nice shot!
Blue Rock Horses Frederick County, Virginia bluerockhorses.com
Thanks, Mitzy. I love cardinals. Most of the time the females are not as prominently perched as the males, so I was especially happy to get this shot of a beautiful female cardinal.
I can’t wait to see here husband. He’s probably wearing leather and little chains. 🙂
Listen for it in the response song later this spring. Nice one Mike.
Quite a hairdo!! 😄
Very nice Mike! Like it’s stylish look!
Love the cardinals! This one definitely looks like she’s ready to rock the stage. Thanks for sharing.
“as far as I could tell” LOL. ~this post’s hilarious!!!!
Thanks, Liz. As you can tell, I was having some fun with this posting. When I was growing up tattoos were pretty rare and only ears were pierced. Nowadays you never know who might have decided to get some ink (or a piercing) on their body in a place that may or may not be immediately visible.
True. Anything other than pierced ears and it was like you were an affront to respectable society. I like life better how it is now! I shared your post on Twitter btw, I love this 🙂
I need to learn to do Twitter more myself. Most of the time I just monitor Twitter posts, which I can do on my desktop computer. I think you need to be on a mobile device to post to Twitter. My iPhone is certainly capable of doing so, but I don’t use it anywhere near as much as I should–mostly I use it for just phone calls and texts. 🙂
I only post anything from my laptop, so I’d have thought you’d be able to do anything that I can do? I’m generally logged into Twitter all the time so I just share from the twitter button that’s on your post (same as I do for mine). I don’t use the WP-automation because I don’t want all my blog-posts to get shared on my twitter a/c. It’d be good to see your posts coming thru on twitter!
Thanks, Liz. I absolutely forgot that there is a button right above the Like button that lets me share a post to Twitter or Facebook–I have never used it. I definitely do not want to have the accounts linked automatically, but might selectively start posting a few things on Twitter.
That’s great Mike!!
Sweet.
We have a similarly high-crested female who comes to our safflower-sunflower feeder. I call her Punky. When her mate shows up, more rarely, his crest is generally slicked down. To each his or her own, I guess!
Once many years ago, I rescued a juvenile cardinal from one of my cats. It thanked me by biting my thumb. I’ll never forget the power of that bill!
Yikes. I will have to take your word, Nina, on the power of the bill. I really love seeing cardinals, especially during the winter. I feel like they are keeping me company as I wait for spring colors to explode on the scene.
Oh, and i forgot to say that the tattoos and piercings could be hidden by the feathers…
Great hair!!! 👍🏻😂
Back in the early 1970’s I had long hair, though I was never bold enough to have a hair cut like that. In fact, I remember refusing to part my hair in the middle, because that seemed to be a sign of being a druggie. 🙂
😂😂👍🏻 great stuff, Mike!! Great memories!!
I was in fact recently trying to remember who I was back in those days, Tony, and the degree to which I have or have not changed over the years.
I had hair down to my shoulders, guitar in hand, and motorcycle to ride whe whenever I could get my hands on one. 😂👍🏻