Bonafide Farm

Cardinal tale

March 5th, 2013 § 0

I came down from bed this morning to find a small male cardinal trapped on the back porch. He flew this way and that, banging his head into the glass walls with a trapped bird’s confused panic. I was afraid he’d kill himself, so I opened the door and tried to shoosh him out. That just made him bang even harder. So in one of his moments of postcollision confusion I tried to grab him with my bare hand. He squawked like a parrot, loud enough to bring my dog running from the field in front of the house. Each time my hand approached, the bird opened his surprisingly large orange beak wide enough to swallow a fingertip and threatened to do just that. I have been around enough birds to know to stay away from that sort of display, so I reckoned that I’d catch him up by his tail just like I do the chickens.

Cardinail Tail1AWeb

Well, when I grabbed the cardinal’s tail most of it came away in my hand as the bird shot through the open door and away to the forest. It’s a weird sensation to be left holding half of a speedily departed creature in your hand whist watching its other half take flight. Kind of like pinning a skink only to see it scuttle away, sacrificing the blue twitching tip of its tail.

I hope the cardinal can do okay without most of his tail feathers. But I guess it’s better that than a broken neck.

Cardinal Tail2AWeb

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