Evening star., 1949-12-26
This and That
By Charles E. TracepeU
BETHESDA, Nd

Dear Sir:
THE last two evenings have enjoyed q
sight hard to describe
"A little after o'clock placed a few
handfuls of sunfiower seeds in the feeder
in the yard.
II have been doing this for the past
several years, and each evening about 4:30
o'clock pair of cardinals come In for their
evening meal.
However, yesterday. I had scarcely
reached inside the house, when on looking
out. the air was full of cardinals.
only Because they stayed so long was
able to count them. There were eight males
and six females, and if one can say birds
play tag. that is surely what they were doing.
There were cardinals before my eyes for
the next 20 or rs minutes, swoosh from the
feeder to the forsythia, swoosh back up and
around again to the picket fence.
"Only one bird was allowed at the feeder
at time, and If he stayed too long he was
chased The feeder Is open on four sides,
on top of pole.
These birds seemed to be having such
q wonderful gay time. This evening the
same thing happened, but they seemed
much more subdued, at least half of them
just hopping around on the ground, sort of
waiting for the others to get through eating.
Nov as have never before had so many
appear together, is this something unusual.
or do they often travel around like this, and
I have just missed them? After seeing this,
I think shall always be looking.
Very truly yours. E. ON"
This is an unusual sight. not seen very
often.
Any one who feeds the wintering birds
constantly, however will see 1t now and
then.
Cardinals do not go in fiocks, and even
in these cases they are not in focks.
They are just congregating in one yard.
They are just happening to meet. as young
people do in drugstores over soft drinks,
now and then. Every older person can re-
call some fated day in youth. when he or
practically every one.
It was wonderful day.
Well, so it is with the redbirds, when they
gather in yard.
We recall such a gathering ten years ago.
Twenty-four cardinals. IL males, and II
females. met in large evergreen.
They SO disposed themselves that they
looked for all the world like candles on q
Christmas tree
The wonderful thing about this meeting
was that they scarcely moved.
Instead of flying around. as our CORES
pondent describes, these "a redbirds met
solemnly.
Sedately they sat- looking around, half
Of them bright red and black. the other half
more sedate in coloring but still beautiful.
Finally, one by one. they detached them
selves from the evergreen, and flew away.
4 X
That was the first time, and the last
time, we ever saw such sight.
So there is not much use to keep on
watching for it again.
Apparently. 1t is pure chance happen
ing.
The neighborhood has built up 4 colony
Of redbirds. Perhaps it Is not. so unusual,
after all, that now and then in the win
tertime they happen to all fly into yard
where steady food is to be found.
While cardinals are not migrating birds,
they do move around, from section to sec
ton. Thus one block will have q score Of
them one year, only to have It's redbird
population fall to three or four birds the
very next year. 4
This does not mean that the cardinals
are being harmed, but simply that they are
As restless as the rest Of created things, and
no more than human beings can stick ia
one place all the time.