Bird Watcher Has “One-in-a-Million” Encounter With Illinois’ State Bird
Do you know what the state bird of Illinois is?
It's the Northern Cardinal!
Fun fact - male and female cardinals are different colors. The male, seen on the left, has a bright red color you're probably most used to spotting. The females have more of a tan color. So you can imagine a bird water's excitement when he saw a rare half male half female cardinal.
The colors are truly like the bird is split in the middle. Check out the pictures shared by Jamie Hill in Pennsylvania who's been birding for 48 years. He explains that the sighting was a -
Once-in-a-lifetime, one in a million bird encounter.
Here's the full post Jamie made about the rare bird sighting -
I have been birding for 48 years and yesterday (20 February 2021) I had a once-in-a-lifetime, one in a million bird...
Posted by Jamie Hill on Sunday, February 21, 2021
HOW COOL IS THAT? Jamie sat for an hour waiting for the bid who had been spotted to return so he could snap some pictures. So since the bird is half male half female, who does the bird mate with? Well, in theory the bird could mate with a male bird and lay eggs or mate with a female and father the eggs.
Another crazy fact, this actually most likely happens in all bird species, but we don't notice because the males and females usually look the same. But in the cardinal's case, they had a perfect half and half look going on.