Yesterday Ron Stephens mentioned redbirds in his comment. He said “I searched BP&A for the word “redbird” because something made me curious. The search returned only 2 results, each the same, from Mr. Miller’s Pigeon Roost column from 1964 about a woman with a pet redbird. In southeast KY where I grew up it was very common for the cardinal to be called “redbird”. There was a community called Redbird in Whitley County. I’m guessing it was a post office name.”
You often hear redbird for the male cardinal here too. Granny adored birds and she always kept an eye out for ones she thought were pretty. She often talked about seeing redbirds, actually she still does.
There’s folklore about redbirds or cardinals. Some say when you see one it’s a message from someone you love who’s done gone on. Buddy Melton from Balsam Range fame wrote a song about it, you can hear it here.
A few years back Ron Banks said “I never see a Cardinal without thinking of my mother. She loved her red birds and believed they were messengers. If one was at your window three days in row then there was bad news to follow.”
Ed Ammons said he’s always heard that when Cardinals called “wet, wet, here” it meant it was going to rain.
The Frank C. Brown Collection of NC Folklore has several entries for redbirds.
- To see a redbird is a sign you are going to hear of a death.
- When a redbird builds a nest around, it is a sign of death.
- If a redbird flies round the house often, there will be a death in the family.
- A redbird is a sign of bad weather.
- When redbirds fly low, you may look for bad weather.
- Redbirds bring cold weather.
- The appearance of a redbird is a sign of rain.
- When redbirds come near the house, it is a sign of rain.
- When a redbird says, “Wet, wet” a heavy rain may be expected.
- If you see a redbird, name it, and you will see it Sunday.
- Name a redbird; if you make a wish before the bird flies, the wish will come true.
- See a redbird and make a wish; if you do not tell it, it will come true.
- If you see a redbird on Friday, and make a wish, it will come true.
- If you see a redbird, kiss your thumb, make a wish, and your wish will come true.
The Pigeon Roost article written by Harvey Miller that Ron found in the blog archives has more folklore and a couple of interesting stories about redbirds.
1961
Mrs. Senia Ray, a resident of the Pigeon Roost area, reported that she has a “pet” redbird that she has seen about every day this winter.
The redbird first alights on her clothes line wire stretched near her home, where it makes a noisy call, and when Mrs. Ray puts more food on the feeding board, the beautiful bird then promptly comes to the feeding station which is nearer her doorsill to eat.
There is an old saying that is still going the rounds here about the redbird—when you hear its noisy song during a dry weather spell, it’s a good sign of it going to rain.
There is another saying used about the redbird by the unmarried girls. When they see a redbird sitting far up on a limb of a tree and making its noisy chat and these young girls will begin to quote out loud, “Redbird, redbird, fly to my right hand and I will see my sweetheart by next Saturday night.”
I have learned of a family in the Pigeon Roost area who has in their family Bible that has been handed down from generation to generation a feather from a wing of a redbird that is believed to be about 75 years old. The feather is always kept at a certain passage in the Bible where the scripture reads about birds.
Are they called cardinals in your area or redbirds?
Last night’s video: The Family History & Stories of Opal Corn Myers 38.
Tipper
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One of God’s most beautiful creatures! Well to be honest with you there wouldn’t be any one of us left in our family from all the times we see Cardinals or Red birds in our yard. They build nests in our Leland cypress trees every year! We see them all through the winter season as well! They are awesome to see against the falling white snow. I think the good Lord has my number written down sometime in the future whenever He thinks it’s my time to go! God Bless everyone!
We use either name here in NE TN. I’ve always heard that if you see a redbird you make a wish and tell no one and it will come true. I’ve also herd if you see a redbird that a deceased loved-one is watching over you. I have also heard if out walking you find any feather, that a deceased loved-one is watching over you. It is against the law in Tennessee and some other states to be found in the possession of wild bird feathers unless you are native American but lots of people have them.
Cousin Ed Ammons beat me to it in naming states that have picked the cardinal as their state avian. (I’m quick if you give me enough time. 🙂
My oldest friend (who has, sadly, passed on) lived in Florida. He could step out his back door, clap his hands, and all “Reddy, Reddy” and a male cardinal would always come sit on the fence. I witnessed this for the 3 years I lived in that area.
We have generations of redbirds who have visited our feeders and bird baths here in central Texas.
I have Cardinals at my bird feeder. They are pretty common in the Ozarks but I love them so. It warms my heart when I see one and it makes me feel like it is my husband or Momma or Daddy checking on me. They have all been gone for a lot of years, but it never fails to brighten my day. When Cardinals appear, angels are near.
When I read your comment, it brought tears to my eyes. I lost my Daddy December 30yh, 2023 and then my Momma January 2nd of this year. Both of them loved their red birds. As momma’s cancer worsened I asked Momma to send me a sign if she could after she passed. She said, “Well honey, I will if I can.” They both loved me and my sister so. Well it was early May this year, I was driving to work one morning at daybreak and as I rounded a sight curve then a straight there stood two red birds, a male and a female right in the middle of the rural back road! I came to a sudden stop and immediately felt it was a message from mom and dad telling me they were together. I’ve not saw one since like that day. As I continued my drive to work I remembered asking my mom to show me a sign if she could. I truly believe that was a sign.
Dear Miss Tipper, I’m sending the last six verses of a beautiful poem written by teacher and writer, K. W. Baker-Born 1878-Little Rock, Ark.
Bluebird and Cardinal
So, though I weary sometimes of the stress,
Leave me not little lovers of the air
Dearest of nature fine antitheses!
Thou art the musing voice and heavenly dress.
Thou, royal firebrand,-neither could I spare.
My scarlet Passion, nor my winged Peace.
I would have sent the entire poem but it is really long. You can find it on line very easily. I thought her words were very pretty and described the Cardinals, and bluebirds, very well. Please enjoy. Love and prayers for Miss Louzine and all her very supportive family.
This post made me think of a heartwarming and cute story. When my now 10 year old daughter was about 3, she saw a bluejay. We explained that pretty blue bird was a bluejay! The next day she was at the window and called to us excitedly, “Look! A redjay! A redjay!” 🙂 Sure enough, she saw a Cardinal and naturally thought it was called a redjay. 🙂
I was raised calling them redbirds. It’s only in the last decade that I’ve heard any myths about them…none of which are supported by scripture, just sweet imagination. I’m 72 yrs. old, raised in east Tennessee.
Turkey hunters know that the single notes of a cardinal (Northern Cardinal, aka redbird) are the first bird sounds one hears in the spring woods, because these greeters, like the hunters, commonly start their day in the dark. If the hunter next hears a throaty greeting from a gobbler roosted nearby, his or her day is off to a fine start. It is interesting that redbirds are usually the last songbirds to call it a day, in the dark.
Gene’s thoughts paralleled mine, but I would add that to me the redbird’s repetitive song sounds like “pretty, pretty, pretty.” While turkey hunting I sometimes count the number of repetitions. The normal range is five to 10, but I’ve heard as many as 18. What is pure delight is to have three or four redbirds going within earshot AND a lordly gobbler declaring dominion to every creature within hearing. I reckon the “pretty” is appropriate, because redbirds are precisely that.
Thank you so much for sharing today’s post about my favorite—RED BIRDS…!!!!! My favorite folklore about a cardinal is that when you see one it is a departed loved one visiting you!!!!! I have been enamored by and with cardinals since I was a little girl. Now, at the age of 70, I watch for them daily!!!!! For many years I have been curating a vast collection of cardinal figurines and just about anything else that has a cardinal on it. I am always on Etsy in the hunt for cardinal jewelry—especially earrings. Cardinals have always and will always be very special to me!!!!!
We call them cardinals. Beautiful birds!
wish I could send the picture I took this morning of a male and female drinking from where I had watered the tomatoes. I see them just about daily.
we either say cardinal or redbird
In Tn I’ve heard them called both. My mother-in-law had one nest under the roof of her front stoop. She loves them. So when I see one I think of her. I have had one pecking on my kitchen window. I’ve put pictures in the window and done everything I can think of to keep him away but he seems determined to get that “other” bird he sees. So I finally just clean up after him.
Either name is used here. I haven’t seen one since moving to the ‘concrete jungle.’
Cardinals and red birds is used in my area of Oklahoma—when I was a kid my mom would say (when her favorite bird-the cardinal flew by) ‘red bird red bird fly to my right see my love before the night’ I do not remember what she said about the left but the ‘right’ saying never failed because sure enough she would see my dad by night time lol All these years later and I still think of mama every time I see a cardinal either in real life or in a picture.
Good morning. in Pennsylvania have only heard them referred to as cardinals, I have never heard them referred to as redbirds. Nothing is prettier than seeing a cardinal against the background of a fresh snowfall. Tipper I know your summer garden is done, would you believe I am still picking tomatoes at the end of September? Crazy, but there’s a bumper crop of black walnuts this year!
Have always called them Redbirds.
My sister will argue that a redbird and a cardinal are different birds; she describes the redbird as being much smaller than the cardinal. I think she is comparing the male and female. If it’s true that seeing a redbird means an angel is near, I have plenty of daily visitors, and I love them all. My mother-in-law threw a big fit when she saw the beautiful bedspread I was using with embroidered birds on it. She said, ‘Don’t you know it’s bad luck to have images of birds inside your house? My bad luck started when I married her son, not when I bought the bedspread.
Redbird or Cardinal are interchangeable here in my state as well. They were my Mothers favorite bird and I have a female who visits my backyard multiple times a day to eat from my offerings, that I put out specifically for her, as she only has one leg. I feed all the other birds who visit as well, don’t get me wrong, but she is my special backyard visitor. I’m sending positive thoughts for Granny
They are referred to as Cardinals here and the folk lore of a cardinal appearing representing a loved one who has passed is what I’ve always heard.
The “hoot howl” heard outside a window for 6 nights in a row is the sign of death coming as heard in the song Wildfire sang by Michael Martin Murphy; a lovely song in my opinion.
Folklore has so many interpretations and is so interesting to study…
When my sister in law (in Owensboro, KY) saw a Redbird she always said “Something good is going to happen.” I like that better than the ‘doom & gloom’ predictions.
We use Cardinal and redbird interchangeably all the time around here. That is what I heard growing up too. We had a pair nest in our clematis which is right in front of our kitchen window and raise a set of young this year. It was interesting watching the parents take care of the eggs and the young until they flew the nest. My grandmother and mother both loved Cardinals, fortunately we have several here and see them all the time. I’ll be getting the feeders set up soon, so we will seen even more of them.
Love Red birds or as we call them cardinals. The stark different between the red male and the brown female that are always together. Back in the 70’s my first wife and I use to go back into the mountains and find old stone foundations, looking for old bottles and such. One day as we drive way back up in the mountains near Hill New Hampshire where a settlement had left leaving only the empty stone foundations. Nearing the settlement my wife told me to stop and look to my right. There on a tree stump was a huge light brown bird. Biggest bird I had ever seen in NH. The bird turned its head toward us and then flew away. It was the most graceful and beautiful bird I had ever seen. All I could think of was that it was an eagle but the colors did not match. Several weeks later I met and talked with a Fish and Game person and asked him if he could tell me what I saw. He said the only bird matching my description was the Golden Eagle. He also said they were very rare in NH and that if we did see one we were very lucky. I say we were blessed. Since that time I have seen hundreds of eagles. While working as a drug counselor in Florida I had my desk pointed at the window that faced an eagle’s nest that was used every season they mated. Every Thursday I would take my clients for a walk outside the classroom to the nearby lake. Along the way I would point out the different birds, from eagles to all sorts of hawks. For some of my clients this was their first experience interacting with nature. With God’s beautiful creation. At our house in Murphy in the woods we have many bird feeders and love seeing the different types that show up. Especially the red birds and the hummingbirds. Have a blessed day.
All seven states whose state bird is the Cardinal are adjoined. Kentucky borders 5 of the 6 remaining. North Carolina only shares a border with Virginia but from Northwesternmost North Carolina across the Southwesternmost point of Virginia to Kentucky is only about 60 miles as the Redbird flies.
I hear both in southern KY, but I always say redbird. I have also heard a lot of those sayings of what it means if a redbird is near. They are beautiful birds. It seems a lot of winter scene pictures have redbirds in them.
I love cardinals! I live in a woodsy neighborhood and see cardinals quite often on my morning walks. I’ve always associated them with good vibes. My sister has a bird bath outside her kitchen window and there’s a cardinal couple that comes to it almost every day. I love watching them in the bath and how the male cardinal takes care of his mate. He’s very protective over her and I’ve seen him actually feeding his mate. I’ve heard they mate for life. They’re soo sweet! Us humans could take lessons from nature if we’d just take the time to notice. 🙂
My late mother in law loved cardinals. She said shortly before her passing if we saw one after she was gone it was her stopping by to say hi. My late mother called them Redbirds. My youngest brother called them red blue jays by mistake when he was young. He’s 52 and hasn’t lived that down…haha! I have them in my mulberry trees a lot. They are so beautiful. I’ve been told they are past loved ones visiting from heaven, I like to think that’s true.
Thanks for posting this Tipper. That picture is beautiful and a perfect match with this post. I learned a lot of red bird folklore I had not known. I did not know it called up rain, for example. It is very clear that the redbird is a favorite to a lot of people and easy to understand why. (I like it that AI thinks that is misspelled! I don’t want it to ever know Appalachian or country generally!)
The Cardinal is the state bird of Ohio where I was raised. The people there call it a cardinal, but my parents, who are from Ky and where I was born, call it a redbird. We have always had the cardinals around where we live. I have watched them build their nests in bushes by our house, watched them raise their young and then observed them leaving their nests. They are beautiful birds. Here in Virginia where we’ve lived for nearly 40 years, they are here too. I read that they stay within a mile and half of where they were born.
We say both names but I usually call them cardinals. They were our school mascot at Clyde elementary. We have a bunch of them that live around our house. I’ve watched them quite a bit the past few years and…oh how funny, as I’m typing this standing outside on my porch I heard one start peep peep peeping…anyway as I’ve watched them I noticed they do love to come out and play in the rain so that’s probably where those sayings come from. Alot of the little birds love playing in the rain and the snow. I had 2 different females this year with white spots allover them…makes them appear dappled white. I don’t know if it’s a form of albinism or what but they are beautiful little birds.
My grandmother from the Oachita mountains area of Oklahoma called them redbirds. She loved them because she loved bright colors. We all kept her in bird seed and filled up her feeders when we visited. I picture her in a red sweatshirt covered in embroidered cardinals she wore often.
North Carolina has it’s state bird as the Cardinal but they are still Redbirds to me!
Forgive me for writing this. I have just read the older post from October 2019 titled Graveyards Spooky or Peaceful. I get angry when I see children and even adults being disrespectful at a cemetery-running around hollering or walking on the graves. Our new church building is located about a half mile from our old church building and cemetery, one of the things that was common at our Halloween social was to take the young people on a hayride to the cemetery and other people be hid there to jump out on them. I would get mad when they would do this, I thought how disrespectful. Then one day after my Daddy had died and was buried there I thought he would think it was funny and enjoy doing things like that. I cut the grass at my church and cemetery for 3 years from the time I was 14-17 years old. I absolutely hated to have to walk on a grave or push a lawnmower over it. This was back in the 60’s before we had “weed eaters.” Even today I try to not walk on a grave. BTW I have been to this cemetery at midnight. I had a hard time when my Daddy died and would go to the cemetery and his grave on my way home after working the second shift. I remember my Daddy saying “it is not the ones in the cemetery that worry me, it is the ones that are still walking around that I worry about.” Don Casada, I respect and admire you for taking care of the Bryson City cemetery.
Most say Redbirds. In my area I’ve never heard anyone connect them to any kind of signs. Mostly you hear “ look at the pretty Redbird “. I think of them gathering around the house if there’s a snow on the ground waiting on food to be thrown out.
Redbirds are one of the bright signs that climate change is real. Growing up in Maine we rarely saw any cardinals, but they were always at my backyard feeder when I moved back to my native state in 2015. It is a combination of less severe winters and the vastly increased popularity of bird feeders that accounts for the change. Although some of my Wabanaki friends say their folklore/birdlore has always included stories of redbirds as spirit messengers, I suspect those were borrowed from related neighboring tribes since the idea of redbirds as messengers was widespread in Native American cultures long before we Europeans came to North and Central America. They are not a native species in Europe, though the Catholic Church has a bunch of them I hear.
My mother and my father’s parents were from the Ozarks foothills of Arkansas and I was born and raised in western Kentucky and we used redbird and cardinal interchangeably. One of the nicknames for the St Louis Cardinals baseball team is the Redbirds. My grandma used to tell my mother when she was little that a redbird calling, “purty purty purty” was telling her she was pretty. Fannie Flagg wrote a sweet novella, A Redbird Christmas, about a lonely Chicago man who spends the winter in a small Alabama town as a rest cure and becomes friends with a storekeeper’s pet redbird.
We call them redbirds. I’ve heard all my life when you see a redbird someone from Heaven is thinking of you. That’s a sweet thought.
Praying for precious Granny!
What a great article! Cardinal and Redbird are used interchangeably here in WN Central Arkansas. We have always heard if you see a lot of Redbirds in the winter meant we would have a good snow! I always like to think maybe my brother or Daddy aren stopping by
to say hello. I loved the song! Thanks for sharing this Tipper. We are keeping Granny in our prayers.
We’ve been taught since we were young to say cardinal here in my part of WV. In school, we were taught about all of our state symbols, including the cardinal, our state bird. I always heard, if you see a cardinal an angel is near. I like to hope that folklore is true. They sure are beautiful.
I have had a cardinal pecking at my windows for two years. I don’t think it means anything. it is seeing
it”s reflection.
We call them cardinals. In Ohio it’s our state bird. They are beautiful. Last year they were nesting in our bushes. I can recognize their vocals during the day. But they weren’t here last year. Haven’t seen one so don’t know what’s happening.
Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Illinois and Indiana also have the Cardinal as their state bird.
My mother and granddaddy loved redbirds Now I do too and keep feed out for them. As for them being messagers, I don’t know. I do know when my mother died I went back early the next morning to her grave after her funeral and burial and there was a redbird hopping around under the tent at her grave. I thought of this “old saying” when I saw it and how it made me feel a little bit better.