JOY ALONG THE WAY: REDBIRDS SING SPRING GREETINGS

This winter I have hung a hefty bird feeder on a swinging bracket attached to a porch post. In inclement weather I can swing the feeder under the porch roof overhang where no snow or rainwater can get into the feeding troughs. I can fill it from the porch, too.

This proximity to the carpeted porch floor results in a mess of discarded sunflower seed husks under my feet the minute I step out the door. I tolerate it in exchange for the heart leaping picture the cardinals make at the feeder, practically all day long. How come they don't get fat? Ever see a fat bird? Turkeys and chickens don't count. There will be a future reward, too, for the pains I have taken to assure dry food and plenty of it. Here's how. I stepped outside recently at pregray dawn to get the daily paper and there were six cardinals singing their new spring song. No, I couldn't see them, but I could locate them by their sound, determine what trees they were in and how many. I was impressed because cardinals aren't known for their pre-dawn song. That's for the robins, later on.

They were answering each other, no doubt about it. And I wondered if there were certain pitches and nuances in birdsong tones that humans can't detect but which the birds can and thus two can talk back and forth to each other in the dark while several others of the same species are talking. Sort of like Crossfire where four or more people are talking at the same time and the listener only catches a screaming noun or verb now and then, yet the talkers seem to know what each other is saying, even though they don't get to finish their sentences.

I think the cardinals are pre-courting, so my additional reward might be two dozen more cardinals making red loops in the air around here next winter. This is my figuring. Each pair might have four young'uns. That makes 12. Cardinals often raise two families a season. Hence, 24 offspring. Whew! How many pounds of sunflower seed will I have to buy? Is that a reward? Yes, I think it is in view of the fact that I might have the future glad sight of seeing 30 cardinals breakfasting at the same time, fifteen to each side of the extended feeder if they are neat.

Wordsworth was so gladdened when, roaming over hills and vales, he came across a host of golden daffodils. Wonder what he would call a sight of 30 cardinals? A cadre of colorful cardinals? A bit redundant. A frolicking roundup of redbirds? Red feather stitching holding the trees and shrubs together?

I worry a little about the temporary out-of-use cardinal nesting place. The great brambly branches of my May rose has been cut back severely. Rose bushes are so good for bird nesting. Cats detest the setting. My crested friends will miss the spot. It was a favorite nesting place for many years. But there are still the honeysuckle, mock orange and autumn olive bushes

One of my favorite springtime adventures is carefully parting the thick foliage of the mock orange and seeing the mother cardinal on her nest. Her eyes seem to grow brighter and there is no blinking on her part as long as I stand there.

Wordsworth's daffodils numbered 10,000. O.K. That's all right, although a bit hyperbolic. Ten thousand cardinals? I don't think so. Well, maybe as long as they don't roost locally. Thirty seems satisfactory, but not realistic. They need liberstraum, so much territory for each pair and I just ain't got that much. There's the nearby hedgerow and the whole Park. That's public domain, but I can still enjoy them weaving in and out of the green foliage like bright shuttles if they would just eat the seeds and berries of the public domain.

REJOICE!

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.