The Cardinal Father, Part 2

by Sandra Santee
(Cottonwood,Tx.)

I live in the Texas hill country where the winters are mild and the springs are long. It is a good place to study birds.

A friend of mine read my story, THE CARDINAL FATHER. She said, "that's a love story not a father story". I said, "it was just the begining".

The first son of my Cardinal father was for the most part, raised and taught by his father in the large oak tree in my front yard.

He learned his social skills at the feeder, he learned his calls. from his father who would make a call and the son would try to copy him. If the son made a mistake, his father would make the same call over again and again until the son got it right.

When he got older he learned how to claim the territory. His father would bob up and down while singing a call and turning right, then left, and front and back.

The son would copy his fathers calls and movements bobbing up and down turning right then left. They would move from one limb to an other bobbing and singing.

What ever they were doing, father was always close at hand. Then one day I noticed the boy was sitting on a limb all by himself.

He looked lost and alone and just sat on the limb staring at me as if he were afraid of me. O.K. I thought, so dad is starting to leave you on your own and you are feeling insecure.

Just about then the father flies in on a limb next to his son, sits there and stares at me. I didn`t do anything, it was like he understood. He then turned and left.

The young Cardinal flew to the feeder, went around behind so I could not see him and filled his tummy.

I had been keeping my husband up to date on the teaching of our first cardinal born in our yard.

When I told him how the father flew in to check on his son to make sure he was alright, he said, well, isn't that what fathers do?