A color of the season is missing

We're becoming more and more troubled by our missing cardinals. We haven't seen any at the feeders for weeks now. Other Winters (and Summers) there's been at least a pair showing up every day or so. We changed the bird seed a couple of months ago so there would be less dropped on the ground, we hoped, so there would be fewer moles and/or voles attracted. The change was from whole black-oil sunflower seeds to a coarsely shelled sunflower seed. We know cardinals are not really perch feeders, so the change in ground feeding possibilities may be a contributor. 

male cardinal on snowy ground

Photo by J. Harrington

We've got more squirrels this year and that may be helping to scare away some birds, including cardinals. We've got less snow, so far, this year. Might cardinals be finding plenty of wild food and have less need of the feeder? Probably not, since they also show up in Summertime. Perhaps we'll try a tray feeder with some whole black-oil sunflower seeds and see if we can attract cardinals in addition to the squirrels we know will think Santa's come early this year.

male cardinal at snow-coated feeder

Photo by J. Harrington

This past year, in addition to many of our human-focused anomalies like COVID-19 and the recent election and the failure of our governments to manage a pandemic as well as most other countries in the developed world, and the unacceptable number of police killings of unarmed people and ... you know, we've had more moles and voles and pocket gophers tearing up our grounds than we've seen since we moved in a quarter century ago. It's unclear what attracted so many. We didn't hang a feeder in front at all this year but still had a number of tunnels appearing in the from and side yards. Maybe for Christmas this year Santa could loan us a yard elf for a year or two?

The Cardinal

By Henry Carlile

Not to conform to any other color

is the secret of being colorful.

He shocks us when he flies

like a red verb over the snow.

He sifts through the blue evenings

to his roost.

He is turning purple.

Soon he'll be black.

In the bar's dark I think of him.

There are no cardinals here.

Only a woman in a red dress.

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