The Cardinal and His Admirer

Northern Cardinals, among the larger songbirds and visually distinctive, are widely admired by humans. And maybe also by some smaller bird species.

Cardinals are not shy birds, but they are not routinely bossy, either. Compared to Northern Mockingbirds, which seem persistently aggressive, Northern Cardinals might be called “situationally assertive.”

I’ve seen mixed groups of smaller songbirds, like House Finches and Eastern Bluebirds, share our birdbath. These sessions usually involve little bathing and more drinking, so the scene looks like a circular bar, with heads dipping.

Larger birds seem to find the basin’s diameter too confining to share with more than a mate or sibling—like being seated at a small cafe table with a stranger.

Out back, we’ve hung a small water dish from a shepherd’s hook. I have yet to see two birds share it, maybe because of the chains or swaying. Single serve drinks seem to keep things more orderly. If the dish is occupied, new arrivals land on the hook.

When it’s time to bathe, adult cardinals shoo away smaller birds and fiercely defend their bath time against similar-size competitors.

Recently, I saw a big, red male drinking from the dish out back and captured him playing peekaboo with dappled sunlight. When he flew over our house, I moved to the front door and found him sharing the birdbath with a small female House Finch.

She seemed almost smitten by his fiery colors. He splashed her and she splashed him, and their wet feathers touched a few times.

After the mixed adult swim, he had no way to hide his short, gray down feathers as he hopped out. What a contrast between the bedraggled wet bird and the coifed dry one!

He soon puffed himself up again as the finch did the same, and they flew off in different directions. Theirs was a simple encounter, but a reminder that bird behavior, like our own, can be unpredictable.