First Cardinal Couple…

Oh my goodness! I just saw my first cardinal “couple” of the year flying from a tree to one of our red-tip bushes, and I am just so excited! Our weather down here in San Antonio is currently 72°, and we are expecting to get as high as 76° today. Winter is finally here!

Yes, that’s exactly what I mean… Today’s weather is exactly what we get during our winters, interspersed with “really cold” days. By this I mean that we range from days like today all the way down to a few days out of each year when we get below freezing temperatures. Last year we actually had an ice “storm”… which was particularly bad for some of us. (We lost power for a few days, but, the good news was that not everyone lost power… The houses across our street continued to get electricity throughout the entire time while the houses on our side of the street had to make quick trips to hardware stores in able to stock up on fire logs.)

Back to my cardinals! I think that they are probably my favorite birds. The deep red of the males is absolutely a phenomenal sight to me, and I also appreciate the very soft browns of the females. We have tall red-tip bushes all around the perimeter of our back yard, so we get quite a few different birds that nest out there. One year, just by chance, my husband and I were able to catch a glimpse of a Bluejay parent teaching three little Bluejays how to fly between the bushes… landing and taking off, back and forth, back and forth for several minutes. That was fun!

Isn’t it something when small things (like the sight of a pair of cardinals) can trigger such positive emotions in us? Isn’t nature grand!?!