Evening star., 1945-01-06
This and That
BY Charles E. Trace,Deu.
ASPEN, Md.


Dear Sir:
What became of the cardinals and
where have they been?
They left us early in october and
neither we nor our neighbors have
day when q male and two females,
or young of this year, appeared In the
shrubbery border near the house.
This morning I saw female in
the azaleas in the L corner of the
house. We have kept melon and sun
flower seed on the feeding board SO
1t Is not lack Of feed that has kept the
cardinals away.
I'VE did not see them near the
house during the first few years that
we lived here, probably because of the
lack of trees and shrubs, but as these
have grown the birds have come in
increasing numbers and now we have
many juncos, song sparrows and fewer
English sparrows each winter.
Blue jays come infrequently, and,
although the mockingbirds are here,
they seldom come to the feeding board.
Bluebirds stay the year around s1d
raise several broods each year. We
saw four pairs of cardinals at once in
the dooryard last winter, and they made
beautiful sight against the snow.
Yours very truly, E. c. p"
-
The cardinal is species which lives
within range of few hundred miles.
He is, in other words, not migratory
He sticks so close to home, in bird
sense, that those which inhabit differ
ent regions, such as Texas, Florida
and Arizona, are recognized as differ
ent forms, with slightly different
coloration.
We have the true Southern cardinal
around here.
1t may be suspected, however, that
while he is essentially nonmigratory,
staying with us the year around, he
harbors some traces of the habits Of
the migratory species.
He will fly away, therefore, usually
in the fall, and take himself on to
some spot score or maybe hundred
miles away. Or he may 60 no farther
than that wooded site few miles or
He will. in any event, desert his
familiar site, and be as absent as if he
had flown thousand or 5000 miles
away.
xx
These bands usually consist of father,
mother and several young.
The youngsters are colored soft
brown in the fall, and 1t is not until
the next year that they get their true
coloration.
They rather more resemble the
mother at first.
Then the home precinct exerts its
lure, and back come the old cardinals.
This is probably what happened to
those which our correspondent re-
garded as his own.
Then, too, there Is the matter Of food.
There is always chance that some
neighbor has managed. to put out some
particular food. which the birds liked
just little better.
We suspect that cardinals, no more
than humans, like a steady diet Of one
or two things. Probably the friend OF
birds who manages to enlarge the bin
of fare will get more cardinals, but we
do not know: we, too, have had dozen
pairs one year., and not more than
one pair the next, but We, too, prob
ably fell in the habit of a monotonous
diet for our birds.
It Is not an easy thing to vary 1t
much, especially with prices Of all sorts
Of grains and seed rising sky high.
There is no more beautiful bird ON q
snowy day than cardinal, which is
just another way Of saying that there
Is no more beautiful bird. In fact, snow
sets OF most species to advantage, but
It may be believed 1t helps the cardinals
just little more than most, owing to
their deep red and the perfect contrast
1t makes with snow and Ice.