If you've ever witnessed a male cardinal attacking his own reflection in a window you already know how violently persistent they can be. Until yesterday, I didn't realize just how dedicated they are. Two male cardinals spent the day going at one another in my back yard. By afternoon one of them was dead on the ground. Even then the winner would periodically fly over, attack again and then drag the corpse a few feet farther from their nesting area in one of our shrubs. Until yesterday I had assumed their fights were brief encounters where the weaker participant quickly departed. Marlin Perkins should have warned me.

Ed

Sorry. I thought this post was about basketball. I've got nothing.

0ood Morning:
For the past two days I have had one constanly slamming into my sun room window! This bird quits at dark but is back at it the next morning.
A Death Wish?? Suicide by trama??
Jimmy

I thought this post was going to be about deadly intrigue in the Vatican.

I thought you might be a fellow Cubs fan.
Jim

I feed the birds and in the winter I'll have up to 12-15 Cardinals on the branches, feeder, and on the ground. A lot of them are males. They get along fine. Until spring. Then they get territorial and fight over the females. I love seeing a flock of Cardinals in the winter when there's fresh snow on the ground and on the tree branches. It makes a pretty picture.

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Misty

There's a pair nesting somewhere in the neighborhood. They hang out in my yard mostly. They eat the caterpillars that get in my cherry hedge. Pretty neat how they squeeze them like a tube of toothpaste.
The best part is I use my squirt bottle to bathe them. They really enjoy it and come here almost daily for their showers.

They are my favorite song birds and yes they are tough little guys, Just ask the Blue Jays.

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Dum vivo cano

If you think basketball is more interesting than nature, I agree: you have nothing!

But that's just my perspective, of course...

I think there was a movie about people being attacked by cardinals once. I think they called it "BEAKS."

Jimmy he's after your hat

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sticks-n-stones&hollowpoints

Hi Jimmy,
Years ago I worked in a little shop down on main street by the car wash. There was a 56 Ford owned by someone in the neighborhood that would park in front of the shop window. The Ford had a large, chrome, flat bird of a hood ornament. I would watch and laugh as the local cardinal bully would come to fight the chrome bird on the parked car. It would go on sometime for ten or fifteen minutes and start up about every time the car would return from somewhere.
It was a hoot to watch but that was in the days of round dial phones and no video. I'd have loved to had a video of it.
Thanks
Mike

Try putting some tape X's on the windows, each piece of tape should be 1/2 or more the width of the pane of glass it is on. Masking tape is the right stuff. It usually will stop this bird behavior.

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Geoff. Since 1960.

Jimmy, Just stay away from the window, that mug of yours in the root cause of the attacks.

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Doesn't hasta call me Johnson

We've had a pair who lived here for years. They mate for life. We have a bird feeder 2-3' from our big living room window. In Summer, the young ones will fly to our feeder, the male will feed the young ones. They feed the female too. Very interesting birds.

Cardinals have really done a number on my van's side mirrors. If they, both male & female's, weren't attacking themselves in the mirror they were taking a break on my roof rack bars, which extend out from the sides of the van a little, and doing "their business" down the side of my van.

Last year this behavior stopped for some odd reason but I seen one out there the other day and the side of my van is starting to get "dumped on" again so they may be back at it...

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Ogy

We have one here. He is crapping all over the mirror of my truck. If he weren't the state bird, and when SWMBO is not watching, I would cap him. Maybe the neighborhood cats or the red tail that lives in our woods will get him.

S/F,

RAS

You think Cardinals are aggressive ?? I watched a couple of crows attacking a small rabbit one day. Diving and pecking at its head trying to kill the little fella'. And if you ever shoot one and wound it don't go picking it up and get it anywheres near your head. Mean spirited birds.



chuck

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They hold no Quarter

MY HAT? Then I am purchasing a Gatling Gun--This is WAR!

WOW! My awesome good looks and sex appeal is even irresistable to birds!

What a bunch of Maroons!

I thought maybe you were a Brewers Fan. I was gonna tell you to get used to it!

I feed birds on my sidewalk. I get doves, blue-jays, cardinals ,sparrows, black birds, etc. The toughest ones by far are the Doves. They'll run off a blue jay from the food pile like you don't know what. Surprised me the first time I saw it.

weird I havent seen my cardinals at all this year it seems like.

maybe its because of the doves then as they seem to be a constant fixture at the bird feeders next to the yellow finches.

Really.......?

"Marlin Perkins should have warned me."

You gotta' be really old to remember, "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom"!



I loved it!

GF

I feed all the wild birds on my back deck with a variety of feeder types. That seems to reduce the competitive fighting.

One summer a female cardinal got fixated on attacking her image in the window. She went at it day after day until I imagine she just wore out.

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Bob.
SWCA 1821

We have two feeders by the window and the cardinals will run every other bird off it.

The toughest, guttiest bird in Tennessee though has to be the mockingbird, they aren't afraid of anything. I've had them divebombing me, my dog, the neighbor's cat. I've seen them go after crows, anything that gets in their territory is subject to attack.



What's a Cub?

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LIVE FROM THE DAWGHOUSE

I am really old!

If you were a Marlin Perkins fan you'll like this. A dear friend and co-worker of mine went with Marlin Perkins on his last elephant ride safari into India to look for the remaining wild Tigers there. He was so taken with the elephants that when he got back he tried to figure out where and how he could keep one. Fortunately it didn't pan out.

Ed

This reminds me of my finches. I have to pull them out and trim their little toe nails from time to time or they grow all crazy. They do their best at trying to nip me to death. It's cute. They try so hard...

hmph that figures not a day latter and both a male and a female cardinal pop up on my deck eating the remains of the suet for the woodpeckers that had fallen to the ground.

young ones too.

Currently a Cardinal nest is in my dwarf spruce in the backyard with 4 eggs in it. My dogs know something is in there, but I try to keep them away from it. It's about 5 feet off the ground. I sure hope once the young leave the nest, it happens between 8 and 5 during the day, when the dogs are in, or else they may get a snack.

Here's a short video of a friendly little peanut sucker chowing down on some mouse brains.


......moon

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NRA Life Member

We've been overrun with Bluejays lately. They can get a bit raucus.

I've been hearing the neighborhood peacocks, too. They've been quiet for quite some time but it seems they're back

He's probably mostly eating the skull, not the brains. Ground and tree squirrels are often calcium deficient. Try hanging an old cow or deer skull on a tree with a squirrel nest and see how long the skull lasts.