Did your acquaintance's aunt write a field guide? :-)

There have been reports in Western WA and Western OR of Northern Cardinal and I think most (all?) are attributed to escapees.

Cardinals are sedentary so they tend not to move themselves around. But one way to move around is with humans as they are kept especially by Mexian migrant workers as caged birds. And they do escape.

So if you see one here without seeing more say 100 miles away it's unlikley that it got here under its own steam. Compare with Western Scrub Jays a sedentary bird that is expanding its range.

Previous reports as found by TWEETERS (not very good) search feature on the web site e.g.

<https://mailman2.u.washington.edu/mailman/mmsearch/tweeters?config=tweeters;method=and;format=short;sort=score;words=cardinal;page=1>

And the lack of threading in the archive is a pain if you find a good post and want to follow the thread (there is a long 2006 thread on Cardinals). But they are there.

Some "best of TWEETERS" links:

Roy, WA cardinal in 2006.
https://mailman2.u.washington.edu/mailman/htdig/tweeters/2006-November/052684.html

Vancouver Lake in April of 2009
https://mailman2.u.washington.edu/mailman/htdig/tweeters/2010-June/077834.html

A long posting on Cardinals in Western WA
https://mailman2.u.washington.edu/mailman/htdig/tweeters/2006-November/052674.html

If the links don't work for you you may need to set up a password to get into the archive.

The other animations are just as entertaining :-)

On Feb 5, 2011, at 12:28 PM, Byers wrote:

> Hi All,
> I have a non-birding acquaintance, who insists that she saw a Northern Cardinal in Seattle back in November. We pointed out that the Cardinal isn?t on our Washington state list and would be rare here, but she was adamant. She pointed out that she was originally from the east coast and knew what a Cardinal looked like. Obviously, I can?t say she didn?t see one, but I suspect that if a Cardinal showed up in Seattle, someone else might have seen it! Did I miss this on Tweeters back in November?
> Cheers, Charlotte
> _______________________________________________
> Tweeters mailing list
> Tweeters at u.washington.edu
> http://mailman2.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters

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Kevin Purcell (Capitol Hill, Seattle, WA)
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