Northern Cardinal

Open sand of beaches, dunes and the hollows between them.

Tidal marshes of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts where the source does not say whether the water is fresh, brackish or salt. A stated salinity files the marsh under freshwater tidal marshes or salt and brackish marshes instead.

Shallow ponds in Coastal Plain depressions, such as limesinks and the ponds in some Carolina bays, that rise and fall with the seasons.

Wet ground taken over by weedy or introduced plants after disturbance, such as common reed, Chinese tallow or tamarisk stands; the upland counterpart is roadsides, fields and disturbed ground.

Forests and open woodlands on dry ridges and slopes, often oak or pine.

Forests on low ground beside rivers and streams that flood from time to time.

Open, thin-soil openings and rock on limestone, dolomite or other lime-rich rock, including cedar glades.

Flat, poorly drained uplands and terraces with oaks, sweetgum and sometimes loblolly pine, wet in winter and dry in summer, but neither a floodplain nor a swamp.

Salt-pruned forests and shrub thickets behind coastal dunes.

Forests between dry and moist, often oak-hickory on slopes.

Treeless grassy or shrubby summits and ridges in the high mountains.

Wet, open, peaty mountain wetlands fed by seepage, often with sphagnum moss.

High mountain forests of beech, yellow birch and sugar maple, including boulderfield forests.

Flat, sandy Coastal Plain pine woodlands, wetter than sandhills and denser than savannas.

Open, fire-kept longleaf pine stands over grasses and wildflowers on wet to moist sandy soil.

Dense evergreen shrub wetlands and bay forests on wet, acid peat of the Coastal Plain.

Still water and its edges: ponds, lakes, millponds and reservoirs.

Coastal marshes flooded by salty or brackish tides.

Planted or intensively managed stands of pine or hardwoods grown for timber; a land use rather than a natural community.