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Observations of a cardinal family
Beautiful but territorial, they guard the bird feeder
When we moved into this house 10 years ago, we put up a bird feeder. We immediately got a cardinal family setting up a nest among the trees overlooking our backyard.
In Native American culture, cardinals are supposed to represent many lovely qualities such as devotion and loving relationships. They also represent monogamy. Some tribes thought they signify good fortune. Others thought them a harbinger of rain, or of sunshine.
I love their beauty, their intelligence, and their intrepid spirit.
While my once husband left eventually, the cardinals remained.
Every year they raise their young in my backyard. Every spring I watch the parents feed their fledglings. A young one will come to the feeder with a parent, and the parent will gently put seeds into the child’s beak, teaching it how to obtain nutritious food.
The father cardinal also often feeds the mother.
Thus we see the value of family and love.
He also protects his territory.
I observed this the other day, when a small bird, maybe a wren, was trying to eat from the feeder. The father cardinal kept intimidating the small bird, making him fly…
