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Deflowered by a Lady Cardinal (Bird)

    Hey, everyone. I was just sitting on the porch, drinking my morning coffee. This is one of my favorite rituals. I noticed one of the local cardinals, a female, was alighting on one of the massive blooms of a Crepe Myrtle tree in my yard. When she did, blossoms went everywhere, cascading downward onto my lawn. Then she went to another bloom with a like result. Then another, and another. Soon it became apparent that she was purposely deflowering my tree on some sort of bird vendetta.
    As you know, I recently had a cardinal family next to my chair, snug in their nest. They had the baby birds there and the whole domestic scene. Cool. They survived their infancy just fine and moved to other quarters recently. We got along great because I kept the cat away from them. During their residency, I did a blog about the rascals and mentioned that the lady cardinal was more drab in her mode of dress than the male.
     It seems obvious to the paranoid that the cardinals not only read the blog, but the lady was offended at my criticism of her feathers. She now tries to destroy some of the beauty in my yard. The blooms are massive, though, and grow so big that they actually pull some branches almost to the ground.
    Hey, maybe I have misjudged the bird! Perhaps she is just sort-of pruning the blooms for me so that the branches will not be damaged. Or perhaps the bird person is merely searching for worms on the blooms, or gnats. She may be trying to merely put food on the table and I have misjudged her. Gee, I feel sort-of guilty now...
     Out of gratitude for my protection the cardinal must have been protecting my interests. By the way, I read a story the other day concerning why the male cardinal has such a brilliant red coat. It is an old Cherokee Indian legend. It indicates that a wolf had gotten into a scrap with a raccoon. The wolf had fallen into a river, hurt his body and nearly drowned during the chase. The coon, among the smartest and sneakiest of animals, found the wolf asleep and trying to recover his health. The coon took advantage of the situation and applied a thick coat of mud to the wolf's eyelids.
     When the male cardinal found the wolf, he was in a heck of a shape. Hard to do anything when you are a blind wolf. Plus, you have few friends, being a predator and all. But, the male cardinal had the nerve and skill to peck the mud from the wolf's eyes. Well, you can imagine how grateful the wolf was. Having some sort of magic ability, the happy wolf gave the male cardinal and all subsequent male cardinals, a lovely red coat of feathers.
     Now, I am not altogether sure this story is true, even though my grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee. I go over to the Cherokee Reservation in the Great Smokies as often as I can. I bought this book of legends there at a store. It is titled Aunt Mary, Tell Me a Story. It is by Mary Ulmer Chiltoskey and is $4.99 at Cherokee Publications, PO Box 430, Cherokee, N.C. 28719.
    How in the heck did this post come about? As usual, an observation turns into a rambling reflection, here at the cardinals' green retreat.
    I'm CE Wills.
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