Perched Cardinal Colouring Page

This is one cardinal, drawn in profile, gripping a plain straight branch with both feet. Its crest sticks up in three pointed spikes above a big round eye, and a bold black mask covers its face right down to its chin, with a short cone-shaped beak poking out of it in a small smile. The body is one large rounded shape from throat to tail, with a single big wing laid flat against its side, and the tail hangs below the branch and splits into a fork at the tip.

The wing and the belly are the two shapes a child will spend the most time on, and both are big and gently curved, so a crayon can move freely without much steering. The black face mask is worth pointing out before anyone starts, since it's a completely different colour from the rest of the bird and gives the page a natural two-colour job: red for the body and wing, black for the mask, brown for the branch. The forked tail tip and the little bands where the feet wrap the branch are the only fiddly bits, and they're small enough to skip if patience runs out.

There's nothing else on the page competing for attention, no background, no second bird, so it sits on the easier side of medium difficulty. The big open spaces suit a three-year-old just getting the hang of staying inside lines, while the mask and the tail fork give a four- or five-year-old something slightly trickier to aim for. Either way, it's a one-sitting page.