Attack Bird!

We have a lip under our porch that always has a bird nest. Some seasons it's on the right, other times it's on the left.

Looking out our front door we get a private view of the nest without interfering with the inhabitants. The kids love to stand at the door and watch when new babies peek their beaks over the top for the first time.

The nest stays, the birds change. We used to knock the nest down but the birds would just come back and build another. Only one each year, never more.

I call the bird of the hour our attack bird. We warn people coming to deliver pizza or visit to beware of the swooping bird. Mama's will guard their nests!

The other night as I headed to bed I took a quick look to see if another bird had found the nest only to find a fairly good sized round red ball sitting atop the nest. I stared at it for a while wondering what in the world it might be. In the fairly dim light I couldn't quite make out whether it was fur, feather or rubber!

It didn't move, even when I popped on the front porch light. Hmmm... maybe the pizza delivery guy had come back, put a ball in the nest to act as a stopper!

It crossed my mind that it might be a cardinal as we have quite a few, but I wasn't aware that they ever hung out under porches that close to humans.

Sure enough though, it is a cardinal. It's a bit bigger than the birds that normally hang out in our nest apartment. It's been there for three nights now so I'm "assuming" it's here to stay for a while.

It could be that it lost its nest somehow to a predator. Could be it's been watching the other little birds fly in and out and decided to take over.

It's a bright red, so I'm not expecting to have little cardinals inhabiting the nest unfortunately. That would be a real treat.