It is getting close to the end of the year, and I’m thinking about a Cardinal standing on a fence.
A Cardinal? The dictionary tells me a cardinal is “a leading dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church. Cardinals are nominated by the Pope and form the Sacred College, which elects succeeding popes (now invariably from among their own number)”. OK, I knew that. Moreover, Cardinal Pell seems to be sitting on a fence over accusations of child molestation in the Australian Catholic Church. However, that wasn’t the image in my mind.
Then I discovered a cardinal is also a type of number: “the number (such as 1, 5, 15) of elements in a mathematical set and that denotes a quantity but not the order”. I didn’t know what that all meant, and I still don’t I understand it! I think we can forget cardinal numbers!!
The third definition is of a bird in the grosbeak family: “a North American finch of which the male is bright red with a black face and a pointed bunch of feathers on its head”. This is the Cardinal I was thinking about. Here’s a photograph of one in our garden, just a few weeks ago:
I find the Cardinal a compelling bird. That black face and eyes around a stubby beak. The bird seems critical, slightly grumpy, examining events with a jaundiced eye, about to say something to put you in your place.
That plumage is a dramatic red. Cherokee legend has it that the Cardinal was originally a brown bird. One day, a raccoon played a trick on a wolf, sleeping in the warm sun. Carefully, he dabbed wet clay on the wolf’s eyes, which quickly dried. When the wolf woke, he couldn’t see, and asked for help. The Cardinal came along, and the wolf promised to paint his feathers red if he could give him back his sight. The bird picked the clay off, and the wolf kept his promise. For sure, the bird does look as though it has been painted!!
The Cardinal is a territorial bird. In fact, our garden is owned by territorialists. In addition to the Cardinal who guards it against other (male) Cardinals, there is a Mockingbird (same attitude), at least three male Bluebirds, a squirrel family, one rabbit, a Red-shouldered Hawk whose dominion extends over some six blocks, and approximately 100 Canada Geese. OK, I’m exaggerating on the number, although on a bad day there can be 50 or more, and through most of the year a resident strange trio, comprising one male (taller than the other two) who watches while the other two eat (and I think he might be the partner of the bird we saw dead on the other side of the lake a couple of years ago).
The worst of the territorialists is a male Ruby-throated Hummingbird (visiting Pfafftown in the summer). When I first saw humming birds in our garden, I was delighted. I raced out to get feeders, in which you put a weakly sugared water, which they drink through plastic flower shapes!! The birds would hover over the feeder, and then settle and dip in. Glorious I thought,they are both delicate and aerobatic. More fool me. Soon I realised the male I considered so strikingly beautiful was more like a vicious hornet. As soon as another male approached, he would zoom over, and try to hit it away, fast moving wings like miniature buzz saws. The female birds were only slightly less ill-treated. When the male had drunk enough, there would be one female he would allow to settle on the feeder, for about ten seconds, and then she was shooed away. Beautiful but nasty!
Being territorial has to do with mating. Like many other birds, the Cardinal is what is sometimes described as ‘socially monogamous’. Apparently, they are sexually profligate, but when a female lays her eggs, a male will look after her, and the chicks, feeding the female until she has hatched the eggs, and then looking after her and the newborns until they leave the nest. I have read the male Cardinals lose their vibrancy of colour during this time, but I’m not sure is this is true. Actually, most birds are socially monogamous during the mating season, but only a few are truly monogamous (including, I was delighted to discover, my old friend the Atlantic Puffin).
I watch the birds in the garden every day. Those I’ve mentioned, and many others. Over time you begin to notice patterns and habits. We have a Carolina Wren, often seen grubbing around close to our birdfeeder. However, he (she?) has on favourite spot, a tiny ledge just under our porch. It’s scarcely big enough to stand on, but I often see the wren fly there, stay for a few minutes, and then go off again. We have several Chickadees and Tufted Titmice (Titmouses?) who congregate around the ivy-covered bird bath. The birdbath itself belongs to the Bluebirds, except when the Cedar Waxwings arrive. Talk about territorial, they are takeover merchants. Then the Grackles hit the garden, and they takeover everything, squawking, fighting, frightening every nice bird away. Only around for a few hours, but everyone knows when the Grackles are in town!
As you would guess from that strong bill, Cardinals are seed eaters. We have two Bradford pear trees in the garden, and I often see Cardinals high up in the tree, out on a thin limb, chasing the last seeds of the year. Bright red against the green, orange and brown leaves
Why does the Cardinal grab my attention? The vivid red helps (as does the startling blue of the male Bluebird). But it is more than that. The Cardinal, like the Mockingbird, stays. In fact, they will stay within the same small area for the whole of their lives, a life span that can extend to fifteen years. I suspect our Cardinals have been with us since we came to Pfafftown.
However, they are more than loyal close neighbours. Some of our garden birds are dominating, demanding our attention. The Mockingbird with its amazing, continuously unfolding repertoire of songs: it is a mimic to rival the lyrebird, and you feel obliged to listen and admire. The Great Blue Heron, stalking along the lakeside, then lazily flapping across to another vantage point, another place to fish. The raucous Crows, cawing at each other, blotting out the sounds of every other bird in sight. The imperious Blue Jay, a more recent arrival who has decided to stake a claim in our garden, a bold thief waiting to see if there is a sparkling prize lying on the ground. A Pileated Woodpecker, the largest of the group, whose tree tapping sounds like a woodman at work. But the Cardinal just calmly goes about its daily tasks, a shocking red it’s true, but in every other sense a well-behaved garden dweller.
The Cardinal in our garden often stands on the fence. Keeping watch? Looking for a mate? Enjoying the sunshine? Unlike that other cardinal, not trying to rise above the appalling behaviour of the church in relation to priest molesting young children. This Cardinal in our garden has better principles than those; I can see him right now, just there on the fence watching the world go by. See. There he is.
Happy holiday season!!
