Cardinals and Finches

Here's a male Northern Cardinal dining with a female House Finch [1]. Both of these birds have stout beaks for the same reason; they both need them to crush the seeds they like to eat:

Birds of a feather, flock together. 

Birds of a beak, similar food they'll seek.

As adults both species mostly eat fruits and seeds, though adult cardinals won't pass up a tasty mealworm. Finches are more committed to a vegetarian lifestyle, though even they won't pass up eating insects (like aphids) that are easily accessible. The difference is much starker with what they consider baby food; cardinals will feed their hatchlings as much protein-enriched insects as they can, while finch hatchlings get primarily vegetarian meals.

Despite the somewhat similar beaks, they're not particularly closely related. The Northern Cardinal is in the cardinal family (surprise!) while House Finches are in the finch family (double surprise!). Our current understanding is that cardinals are more closely related to warblers and sparrows than they are to finches.

February 14, 2023 at Duke Farms
Photo 263681118, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

[1] I'm sure there was no romance there; it was the wrong season and they're almost certainly too distantly related to breed. Though I'd like to think they were friends, bird feeders are a place with plenty of competitive rivalries. 

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