Six years ago, an Alabama photographer’s photos of a rare yellow cardinal captivated the nation on numerous national news outlets after being first reported on AL.com.
Now, a bird with the same genetic mutation -- one that makes the bird’s feathers appear bright yellow instead of red -- has been spotted in the Birmingham suburbs, about 15 miles away from the 2018 sighting.
Photographer Jeremy Black, who captured the trademark images of “Mr. Yellow” in 2018, said a Helena resident contacted him last week reporting a yellow cardinal sighting in her backyard.
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Black visited the house and within a few days had taken several images of the new yellow cardinal, which appears to be a different bird with the same genetic mutation as Mr. Yellow.
“We saw it for just a few seconds [the first day], just enough to confirm that it is a northern cardinal with yellow plumage,” Black said. “Since that time, it has been pretty much visiting on a daily basis.”
Black photographed Mr. Yellow in Alabaster in 2018. The new sighting occurred about 15 miles away, in Helena.
The homeowner who first spotted the new yellow cardinal requested that her identity not be disclosed in this story to protect the bird, and her property, from unwanted attention.
After the 2018 yellow cardinal story, the neighborhood where the bird was spotted was beset by hundreds of people, causing issues for nearby residents. But the homeowner said she did want to see her town of Helena recognized for having such a rare find.
“To me, he’s such a rare bird, so beautiful,” she told AL.com. “I want the town of Helena to get the recognition and to be mentioned online with Alabaster, Texas, Louisiana and all these sightings of other yellow cardinals.”
She said her husband named the bird Maize after they decided it needed a more masculine name.
“We felt like we needed to stay with the yellow theme somehow,” she said. “Buttercup was too feminine. He’s a male, so we wanted a handsome name and my husband came up with Maize and it stuck.”
The homeowner said she first saw the bird while eating lunch and her home and recognized it immediately.
“I knew exactly what it was because I had recalled the yellow cardinal in Alabaster some years ago,” she said.
Then she contacted Black, who helped confirm the identification and get more photos to document the sighting.
Geoffrey Hill, an Auburn University ornithologist who has done extensive research on bird colorations, said Maize could be related to Mr. Yellow from 2018, but there was no way to know for sure.
He believes the genetic mutation may simply be more common in this area.
“It’s probably not unrelated, or a coincidence,” Hill told AL.com. “It probably is the same mutation that exists in that region, in that population, maybe at a higher level than it does in some other cardinal populations.”
Hill said the mutation that causes the unusual coloration seen in Mr. Yellow, and now in Maize, is likely the result of two recessive genetic traits, and that the condition may only manifest in offspring that have two parents carrying the same recessive gene.
“There’s this rare mutation that’s recessive,” Hill said. “So if there’s only one copy, it doesn’t show up.
“But because it’s in that population at a pretty high level, you’re getting two copies matched once in a while and that’s the bird that has the yellow.”
In June 2018, Mr. Yellow appeared to be a father. Black photographed the bird and a female cardinal caring for a nest with two hatchlings in it.
However, the hatchlings left the nest before it could be determined whether they also carried the genetic mutation.
As for Maize, the homeowner said she hopes he will stick around for a while. She said she enjoys watching all kinds of birds in her backyard, but this one is just a bit more special.
“All these other species that we have in our backyard are just as equally beautiful,” she said. “We love watching all of them.
“But he just shines, he just popped out. He was a stud.”
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