We live in one of the more southern parts of Canada, the north shore of Lake Erie, and there are many beautiful birds who live and sing in our Carolinian woods. One of the birds we see often is the beautiful red cardinal, sometimes accompanied by his mate whose plumage is a little more drab. Sometimes you can hear them answer each other: the male out in the open, and the female bird under cover or maybe in a nest, but she almost always matches the particular song he is singing (Backyard Birdsong, Donald Kroodsma) Like, “that’s our song, baby!”
The birds especially like it if we keep our bird feeder well-stocked, and we enjoy seeing them come a little closer. One problem that we do have is that our bird feeder is near a window and sometimes the male cardinal sees a reflection of himself that he thinks is another bird. Either because he’s very protective of the female, or perhaps to protect his territory, he will dive-bomb the suspected intruder, only to slam into the window, which must be very painful! And he doesn’t learn from his experience, because he will repeat this over and over!
God made us a beautiful universe, too, and he keeps this world well-stocked for us. But sometimes we want to hoard it all for ourselves and keep others away. Or sometimes others seem like a threat to us, even though we are human beings just like them. Like our friend the cardinal, when we attack others, in the end it’s ourselves that we hurt.
So now, we’ve pasted up several butterfly silhouettes, and hopefully this peaceful solution will keep our defensive friend safe!
