Apr 27
Mr. Cardinal’s Breakfast Date
“Wait… is today when the eggs go in the nest?”
He got breakfast for
his lovely brown lady but—
she seems a no-show!
We have a cardinal pair who are regular customers at our feeders — we like to call them Mr. C. and Mrs. C.
He regularly feeds her seeds and suet. Allegedly this is courtship behavior, and yet these two have been together for several years (successfully, based on the juvenile cardinals who join them in the summer), so Deb and I figure he does it just because she’s his mate—no ulterior motive.
But this morning Mr. C. got a chunk of suet, flew into the adjacent ornamental cherry tree (now at peak bloom), and fed… nobody. He just sat there. Looked around a little. Seemed mildly perplexed. Perhaps a bit lost. Mrs. C. was nowhere to be seen. After a minute or so, he flew off in a westerly direction.
Since then we’ve seen him twice today. Once he flew in, grabbed some suet, and took off west immediately. Second time he grabbed some seed (suet feeder was busy, and apparently he didn’t have time to wait) and headed west again, posthaste.
DEB: I think somebody is sitting on a nest somewhere and can’t go out for meals just yet…
