Sunday, August 19, 2007

More about Bad-hair-day Papa

Bob Levy continues the remarkable cardinal saga:

Here’s a follow-up to my report about the “bad-hair-day” Northern Cardinal I call Papa Museum. His energy and devotion to his fledglings has not diminished though his feather count clearly has. Since I first told you about him I was able to find him again on three successive occasions. On the most recent one I zeroed in on the sound of a fledgling calling from a bush along the sidewalk adjacent to the exit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art parking garage. Papa Museum burst out of the shrub with both juveniles racing to keep up with him. A few yards away inside a circle of shrubbery separating the garage exit from the entrance he proceeded to feed both youngsters while I appreciatively watched for ten to fifteen minutes after which the family skedaddled over a fence where I could not follow. The birds kept in the shadows and behind the leaves most of the time I was with them. With the poor lighting conditions I got a series of blurry shots but managed one reasonable one at a crucial moment in every youngsters life: feeding time. I have to wonder if his offspring will inherit his genes and experience bad hair days of their own when they are his age.