KIND OF RUINED THE EFFECT

FEMALE CARDINAL

Sunday, 7:30 AM.  25 degrees F at the ferry dock, 26 on the back porch.  Wind NE, calm with occasional strong gusts.  The sky is overcast, the humidity 86%.  The   barometer is more or less steady at 30.23".  We have a dusting of snow over icy roads and Buddy and I have not ventured out as yet and if conditions  don't improve will not go very far.

   The most succinct commentary I have heard on the results of the South Carolina Republican primary: Trump trumped.

   I have been trying to snap a photo of a male and female cardinal (I have seen the same behavior in robins) who daily attack one of our patio doors.  They are too quick for my camera, which takes what seems like almost a second to snap a photo after the shutter button is actuated.  If there is a way to make it react quicker I haven't found it.  No matter, my own reactions are probably not quick enough to catch them in the act either.  I guess I could try it in movie mode.  Hadn't thought of that.

   Anyway, at this juncture you will have to be satisfied with a photo of the female sitting calmly on the deck rail.  She looks placid, but when in attack mode beating at the glass door she is anything but.  Both sexes are equally aggressive.  I assume they are attacking a phantom rival, their own reflection.  Why they see their rival only in the one door I don't know.  I assume the female thinks she is attacking a rival for a nesting site, and the male thinks he is attacking a rival for territory.

   Twenty-five years ago when we lived in Nebraska we witnessed the same aggressive cardinal behavior.  We had a glass ball reflecting globe in the garden, and a female cardinal took to attacking her reflection.  She attacked so viciously with flailing wings and sharp beak that we feared she would kill herself, or at least break the globe.  The globe was cemented to a heavy concrete base and not easy to remove, so I threw a towel over it and the attacks stopped.  Kind of ruined the effect of the globe, though.