Chapter XI: The Cardinals

Having often seen cardinals feed in poultry yards with chickens, I again started to scatter chickfeed, hoping to attract those beautiful birds to my house. _Chickfeed_ is finer than _chickenfeed_, and I believe the birds like it better.

Every winter I trimmed up an old tree with peanuts for the birds’ Christmas, and always after a snowstorm I tramped the snow down; then scattered the feed on it, with buckwheat and sunflower seeds added.

At first only nuthatches, chickadees, and juncos came to my lunches on the snow. One stormy day a cardinal ventured into our front yard; but he did not go near the chickfeed. Several juncos were there, and maybe he wanted to be generous and leave it all to the smaller birds.

He kept coming nearer to the house. At last he flew pell-mell into our porch. It seemed as if the wind had blown him in. On a little shelf behind the windshield he alighted and stayed.

After a while another bird flew to the little shelf. I hadn’t noticed this bird before, my attention being taken up with the cardinal. This second bird was reddish green. In my little bird guide I had seen pictures of the two cardinals, so I knew that she was the red one’s mate.

The cardinal pecked at her when she went to his side, and the meek little bird just clung to the shelf. The next day I made a shelf for her just below his.

At dusk the cardinals returned, silently, even stealthily, as though they thought it unwise to publish their presence. Again he was a little ahead of her, and he flew to the new shelf. She alighted on the edge of the upper one. After a while she tripped a little farther in, to a more comfortable place. When she was settled, he went to her shelf and snuggled down beside her. Maybe he was sorry that he had acted so selfishly the day before. I never saw him peck at her again.

Every stormy day that winter the cardinals came to our porch at evening. They became so confiding after a week or so that he usually announced their arrival with a few low hissing notes, something like “Tset, tset, tset!” Sometimes he would perch on the upper shelf, sometimes on the lower. Mrs. Cardinal was a peace-loving bird. She always came last, and took the empty shelf. Usually he would change so as to sit beside her. They were always gone in the morning, no matter how early I came out; and when they came in the evening it was usually dusk. So I never got a picture of my cardinals on the shelves.

Mr. Cardinal finally got so he sometimes came to the lunch on the snow; but his favorite feedery was a tray in my neighbor’s yard, which I kept supplied with shelled peanuts and shelled corn. The English sparrows could not manage these large kernels, so the cardinals had this feedery to themselves. This may be the reason why they preferred it to the one on the ground.

But the cardinals must have procured much of their food elsewhere, for they came only about once in three or four hours to get a dainty at the tray. Strange to say they never came together. Always he came first and ate a while, then sometimes she would come, too. It seemed as if she let him come first, then, seeing that he stayed, she took it for granted that all was well.

In March the cardinals stopped sleeping on the porch. About that time I began to hear almost daily a new song. It sounded like,

^“D e _a _r gilly gilly gilly gilly!”

Immediately after it there would be a loose twitter: “Chuk-chuk-chuk-chuk,”—so soft and low, it seemed it must be very near. Usually it brought another song from the cardinal, and presently he would appear with a morsel for Mrs. Cardinal, who had a favorite perch in our little pear tree. I soon learned that the twitter was her response to his call. The winsome sight of seeing him feed her repaid me for all the money I spent for peanuts at thirteen cents the pound.

The pair began now to frequent the ravine more than usual. On its edge lay a log from which the outer bark had been removed. Here the cardinals were often to be seen, peeling and tearing off strips of wood-fiber, which they bore away in long flowing streamers.

One morning Mrs. Cotton came in. “Here is news for you,” she said. “The red bird and a greenish bird are making a nest in my syringa bush.”

The birds went on with their nesting for several days. Then Mrs. Cotton came over again, looking sad. The birds were carrying away all their nesting material, she said. They had probably seen the cat, had become alarmed for the safety of their home, and so changed its location.

The cardinal had several songs. One was:

“Whit whit ^d ^e a _r ^d ^e a _r ^whoit whoit whoit”

Another was just plain:

_“W _h o ^i ^t _w _h o ^i ^t”

sung from three to ten times in succession. Sometimes, when Mrs. Cardinal did not respond promptly, he “chuk”-ed, himself, in imitation of her notes.

In late August I found the cardinals’ deserted nest in an evergreen on the ravine’s edge. It was made almost entirely of this stringy wood-fiber, lined with fine rootlets, and interwoven with many leaves.

I never saw but two baby cardinals of this brood. They were brownish birds, and they had the red bill of the parents.

After August I saw nothing more of their mother. I have suspected that a boy down the street was to blame; his favorite plaything was an air-gun, and he had been caught shooting a brown thrasher shortly before. It seems to me the laws protecting song-birds ought to be taught in every school, and that children should be obliged to know that shooting song-birds or their young, or spoiling or stealing their eggs or nest, is a crime punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both.

Father Cardinal was seen tending the young faithfully until October. Then he suddenly turned on them. Whenever they followed him after that he drove them from him. The young found peanuts which I had chopped and scattered on the ground for them. But whenever Father found the young birds eating these nuts, he chased them away. Once a baby cardinal found a whole peanut. He bravely ventured to eat it, and in the attempt got the shell partly open. He was just picking a nut out, when his brother tried to snatch it from him. A struggle followed, during which the shell broke in two, and each contestant got a kernel. In November the young cardinals disappeared.

Father Cardinal’s persecution of his motherless children seemed unnatural, not to say cruel. Can it be that he tried thus to compel his young to seek their natural food, rather than to subsist on dainties furnished? Did he want to encourage them to become self-reliant and useful? Only on this theory can I account for his conduct.

Our cardinal was a widower for some weeks longer. Only a few times during that mild winter did he come to sleep on our porch, and on those occasions he came alone. Then a lady cardinal appeared, and she followed him persistently. But he wholly ignored her. Finally she began to carry food to him and to feed him. Whether this be a last resort of wooing in birddom, or not, I do not know. Anyhow, Mr. Cardinal relented. The next thing, he was seen to feed her whom he had treated so coolly. This was a pretty sure sign that the two had come to an understanding. Again the old log by the ravine was being visited for nesting material. Again all his songs rang out, and he added a new one. It seemed as if he were singing over and over:

“Come ^here come ^here Come ^here here here”