Communing With Cardinals

When my friends ask me which of the many birds I’ve seen is my favorite, I know exactly what to answer.

I have three.

The carolina wren sings its lovely songs - it knows a lot of them - all year, even in the coldest, snowiest winter when I need it most. I always feel honored when one makes an unexpected appearance at my feeder.

The black-capped chickadee is fun to watch because it will explore just about anything and isn’t afraid to hang upside down. Its song sounds like “Hey, sweetie.” It will come to the feeder, grab a sunflower seed and fly to a nearby bush to eat. It is inquisitive and isn’t afraid to fly close.

But I have to admit the first among equals is the cardinal.

The male's red or the female's warm brown (with red in the crest and bill and tail)  look pretty in a green bush or pine tree. The crested bird is big and easy to identify. It is monogamous (like the wren but unlike the chickadee) and when courting its mate he will give her a seed in a way that looks like a kiss. Both birds sing but the male is more obvious, loudly proclaiming from the top of a tree in spring.

The cardinal is reliable, coming every day to my feeder at dawn and at dusk.

We all know the phrase about the early bird getting the worm. I think it refers to the robin, which gets is up early and stays out late to sing and eat. But robins don’t come to my seed feeder. When I am up at dawn I can look out at the feeder and know one of the cardinals will be the first bird to visit. If I am lucky enough to be home at dusk I know it will be the last bird to visit.

At these times I like to stand at the kitchen window and watch the cardinals, communing with them, if you will. They seem so calm and comfortable with each other, like a long-married couple. The pair fly together, calling with hard “teeks” as if to say, “I am here, where are you?” “I’m right here, where are YOU?”

After an exasperating day at work it is calming to watch a cardinal in my feeder at dusk. But a bird's life is anything but calm.

In winter I’ve had as many as four cardinal pairs jockeying for feeding position. Like all birds there is a pecking order, with the most inferior and his mate forced to wait off to the side until the others eat - these birds will sit at the feeder a long time cracking the seeds with their large finch bills - before they can have their meal. (I keep a lot of seed on hand.)

Last winter, when the snows were deep and the neighbors didn’t fill their feeders we had so many finches, sparrows and other birds in our feeder I heard the cardinals scream, then attack. It was a horrifying reminder life can be cruel, especially in winter, and even the most placid of us can suddenly face the choice of fighting to stay alive or perishing.

Cardinals, at least, are in no danger of becoming extinct despite all the hazards of life in the wild, although given time Man always seems to come up with ways to jar Nature’s delicate balance in a mad pursuit of some kind of material nirvana.

That's why I watch for the cardinals to make their regular visits at dawn and dusk. They provide me a bit of spiritual calm.