Mama Cardinal
Learning to enjoy what your spouse loves makes life more . . . connected.
I never cared much about birds.
Growing up on the farm I used to hunt sparrows with my BB gun. My BB gun was so wimpy that when I shot a sparrow, I could see the BB harmlessly bounce off and the sparrow fly away! Now that I think about it, I’m glad I had a wimpy BB gun.
Birds were just not that important to me, but when the one you love is interested in something, you start to pay attention.
And my wife enjoys birds.
15 years ago we bought her a birdbath and I slowly began to grow in my delight for our feathered friends.
We planted a Chinese pistache tree in our backyard after we moved to Lubbock. It makes little red berries that the birds like to eat. A few years later a couple of cardinals moved into our neighborhood and they LOVED the berries in our tree. We truly appreciated the Cardinals because they are pretty rare in the High Plains since we are in the far western edge of the Northern Cardinal’s range. They were really special.
One day I saw mama cardinal sitting on our bird bath and she was extra fat. We decided she must be full of eggs. She seemed totally worn out, as pregnant ladies sometimes tend to be.
Now, even though Blue Jays have beautiful plumage, their dispositions are aggressive and tacky. They tend to bully the other birds in the neighborhood and will eat a robin’s eggs in a heartbeat if the mama and daddy robins aren’t aggressively defending the nest.
Well, a couple of blue jays landed by my mama cardinal on the bird bath that day. Normally, she would have flown off, but today she was so tired and out of sorts that she wasn’t going to put up with any of their crap. She stood up to those pesky blue jays and vigorously swatted them away. They were so shocked by this out-of-character behavior by a cardinal, they decided to leave that mama bird alone!! I fell in love with Mama Cardinal that moment. I was pumping my fist and yelling, “YEAH! Mama Cardinal! Way to show those bullies who’s boss!!”
Later on I saw her finally work up enough energy to fly back to her tree, but with the heavy cargo aboard, it was quite an effort.
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The next morning I went through the back yard to put the trash in the alley dumpster when I saw a reddish spot in the grass under the pistache tree. I hurried over and found a scattering of red cardinal feathers!! NO!!! Mama Cardinal!! Eaten by a darn cat!
I cried.
It surprised me that I cared that much about a BIRD!
But when you love your spouse, you tend to learn to love the things that bring them joy.