Yesterday I posted a photo of a female northern cardinal waiting on our birdbath, not for a few seconds as their usual habit, but for over ten minutes. Several hours later this same bird returned and took up residence on the birdbath, only this time she didn’t just wait, she rested. She nestled her beak into her feathers and she fell asleep for over 15 minutes…out in the open, unprotected, alone. While other birds, chipmunks, and squirrels flitted and fluttered and foraged around her, she slept.
I watch the birds ten feet from my window every morning and I’ve never seen another bird fall asleep on the birdbath. Cardinals like to sit close to the ground in dense tangles of vines and shrubs, but never out in the open for more than a few seconds. Of the dozen different types of birds that I’ve been able to identify that use our birdbath, by far the cardinal is one of the most skittish. And yet she sat on the birdbath waiting, resting, content, as though she knew Someone was watching over her.
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