One of the first things that will happen to you once someone knows you’re a birder is that they’ll tell you they’ve got a weird bird out by their feeder. It’s brownish, they’ll say, and has a crest and some red on it. It looks like a cardinal, sort of, but they know what a cardinal looks like and this isn’t quite it but it does have some red on it… Stop them. Stop them right there. Look them in the eye and with a firm but sympathetic voice explain, “It’s a female cardinal.” The ability to identify a female Northern Cardinal is one of the most important first steps towards becoming a birder, because, for whatever reason, everyone asks. The same way your one friend with a pickup truck is always asked to help on moving day, you’ll be sent a constant stream of identification requests once your friends and family know you’re into birds. There’ll be emails with confusing descriptions, blurry photos of backyard feeders, and even audio clips recorded out an...