The female cardinal—a being guaranteed to unsettle conservative Catholics—answers her mate’s anxious chirps, crest bent back by the wind.

First morning of a predicted heat wave: leaves turn backwards in a warm wind. A cardinal sings “purty purty purty” in a Southern accent.

Male and female cardinal meet beak-to-beak in the middle of the driveway. He sings, she gives him a seed or bit of grit, and they fly off.

Sun shining through thin clouds and wind-blown snow. A great wave of happiness sweeps past. In the barberry bush, a cardinal begins to sing.

1°F. A breeze feels as sharp as the studded rim of the sun rising through the trees. The call of a cardinal like an engine trying to start.

The dawn chorus begins just as it does in January: with cardinal song. High above the atmosphere, a satellite catches the first rays of sun.

Snow. A male cardinal lands in a birch tree, and the woods behind him suddenly seems so much whiter. Finches ride tall weeds to the ground.