Cardinals at the Feeders

We decided to leave my Grandad's feeder at the nursing home. He shared the room with another man, and he is now getting all excited by the Cardinals that are coming in, and we thought that he should continue to enjoy them. So one of the very first things I did when off on some errands in town was to buy another feeder and a bag of mixed seed. Ten bucks and half an hour later, we were in business. And only very shortly after that, the birds discovered it. Whilst I said that there were not many species in northern Ohio, those that do remain are pretty easy to spot against a mainly white background, viz:





I could look at Cardinals just about for ever I think. Cardinalis cardinalis is the State bird (but so good that a bunch of other States picked it too), and they are abundant. At one stage there were five coming in to the small feeder I had purchased. They prefer to feed on the ground, and so were making the most of the seed knocked out by the Song Sparrows and American Tree Sparrows, but when that wasn't enough, they were able to cling on whilst flapping for a quick feed, which generally set the feeder a-swinging and knocked more onto the floor.

I placed it right outside the kitchen window so that my Grandma can see them whilst there, and was very pleased by how many birds are now using it. In addition to the birds aready mentioned, there were at least six Eastern Bluebirds, three Dark-eyed Juncos, three Blue Jays, a pair of Mourning Doves, and countless American Robins. Standard fare perhaps, but pretty mega from my perspective. More on these in a subsequent post, I'm off to look for Siskins on the patch.