Once-in-a-lifetime sighting. Extremely rare bird visits a Coral Springs backyard
It isn’t a remarkable story, Dyane Oliva told the Coral Springs News. She was in her backyard and saw a strange looking bird, so she pulled out her phone.
At 26, she is young for a birdwatcher — often the youngest when she goes on outings with other hobbyists, she said during an Oct. 23 interview.
“I’ve made a lot of old lady friends,” she said. “I love it.”
Oliva said the sighting of the yellow northern cardinal, although rare, is “on brand” for her. The lifelong South Florida resident went to school for environmental science, largely focusing on water conservation and Everglades ecology.
How rare is the sighting? Ornithologist Geoffrey Hill, a professor at Auburn University, told MLive in January that it’s estimated that there are about 50 million cardinals in North America. Of those, there are about five known yellow cardinals at a given time.
“So, it probably is more like one in 10 million birds,” he told the outlet.
Oliva now works with Broward County, helping create wildlife corridors using native plants. The connections made the unique sighting that much more meaningful.
The news received a lukewarm response on iNaturalist, an open-source map used for identifying and tracking wildlife. But Redditors in r/Birding tipped off Oliva that this was likely a once-in-a-lifetime sighting.
“People were commenting like, ‘I would drive hundreds of miles to see that bird,’” she said.
Yellow cardinals are only reported two to three times per year in North America — so Oliva said she feels lucky that she stumbled across it in her backyard.
There are a wide range of opportunities to encourage birds to visit your home. That includes adding native plants to your yard, porch, or window sill — with berry-producing varieties such as the American beautyberry being the most attractive to the creatures.
This story was originally published October 24, 2025 at 11:26 AM.
