How to attract · species guide

How to Attract Northern Cardinals

How to attract northern cardinals, per All About Birds, is direct: nearly any feeder within their range ought to attract them, they particularly use sunflower seeds, and leaving undergrowth in the yard or around its edges can bring a nesting pair ⁴.

Species facts are from All About Birds ⁴; feeder facts from FeederWatch ¹; plant advice from Audubon ³; window guidance from All About Birds ².

Male northern cardinal in a shrub — how to attract northern cardinals means sunflower and dense cover — Photo: Rhododendrites, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How to attract northern cardinals with the right feeder and seed

Cardinals eat many kinds of birdseed, particularly black oil sunflower ⁴, which FeederWatch calls the preferred food for a wide variety of birds and a cardinal favorite ¹; safflower attracts cardinals and other big-billed birds too, though most birds prefer sunflower ¹. Serve it where a cardinal can stand: large hoppers let larger species feed, and trays attract most species ¹ — a tube's short perches are for finches.

Cover and fruit for cardinals, and the window problem

Cardinals live in dense shrubby areas — forest edges, hedgerows, thickets and ornamental landscaping — and nest in a fork of small branches in a sapling, shrub or vine tangle, 1–15 feet up and hidden in dense foliage ⁴. Their wild foods include dogwood, wild grape, mulberry, hackberry, blackberry and sumac ⁴, so Audubon's staggered fruit shrubs — serviceberry, dogwood, cedar and holly — feed them in every season ³, and they feed nestlings mostly insects, which native plants supply ⁴.

Cardinals are the bird most often seen attacking their own reflection in a window or car mirror in spring and early summer, when both sexes defend territory; the attacks stop a few weeks later as hormone levels fall ⁴. Exterior markings, screens or a covered mirror end it sooner, and protect the bird from collisions as well ².

Keep the birds you attract safe: windows, cats, clean feeders

Window collisions kill perhaps a billion or more birds a year in North America, and far more die at homes and low-rise buildings than at high-rises simply because there are so many of them ². Older rules about safe feeder-to-window distances are no longer thought valid; the fix is to make the glass visible — markings spaced no more than 2 inches apart on the outside, exterior screens, or hanging cords ¹².

Cats are the most numerous pet in North America and kill hundreds of millions of birds each year; ground-feeding birds, ground-nesting birds and fledglings are at greatest risk, and feeder birds are easy prey, so FeederWatch strongly recommends keeping cats indoors ¹. Clean seed and suet feeders every week or two — more often in heavy use or wet weather — with warm water and dish soap, since leftover seed and hulls harbor pathogens ¹.

Related guides for this bird

Species profile →Feeder guide →Plant guide →

More attraction guides

Attract birds to your yard →Attract birds to a feeder →Attract birds to a new feeder →Attract birds to a bird bath →Attract birds without a feeder →Bird calls to attract birds →Attract birds to your hand →Attract birds in winter →Balcony birding →Attract birds to a birdhouse →Birds that eat yard pests →How to attract american goldfinches →How to attract black-capped chickadees →How to attract ruby-throated hummingbirds →How to attract baltimore orioles →How to attract bluebirds →All guides →

Frequently asked questions

What is the best way to attract cardinals?

Black-oil sunflower on a hopper or platform, plus dense shrubs or undergrowth left for nesting ¹⁴.

Why does a cardinal keep attacking my window?

It is fighting its reflection while defending territory in spring; it stops in a few weeks, sooner if you cover the glass from outside ²⁴.