Stupid Northern Cardinals
In My Backyard
You can see the eggs and the nest in the Laurel bushes. I brush by these bushes every day walking to gather eggs in the evening and letting my hens out in the morning. The Cardinal hen is already yelling at me for walking too close to her nest! Now I have to put off their shearing because a Breeding pair of Northern Cardinals have set up house.
You can see my bushes need trimming badly! See all those leaves? I save all my leaves from our maple trees and use them instead of straw or sawdust for the chicken run. The chickens compost the leaves and I move them into my garden in the fall.Last year the squirrels raided a nest built in the same hedge. The couple laid more eggs after building their nest in the nearby bushes next to our backyard porch and the eggs hatched! However, a huge storm blew the two hatchlings out of the nest. I put the day old chicks back in the nest but the mother never came back and they died.
Hopefully this pair of cardinals will have better luck.
Just talk sweetly to them. They will get used to your voice and who you are and they will usually become quite friendly.
Cardinals are very intelligent and if they built a nest there and you build a bond they will usually come back to the same area and nest.
They used to be kept as pets a lot as well but their sale was banned in the U.S.A. a long time ago. You aren't allowed to take, hurt, or possess any Cardinals at all no matter the breed. It was rumored 100s of 1,000s of domesticated Cardinals were released into the wild after the bans.
They love Sunflower seeds as well!
I used to have some that stuck around my mom's house when I was a kid they were pretty cool.
I will talk to her @timbo, thank you for the history and advice. I don't like keeping birds in cages, but they do seem very intelligent. Except for their nest building choices....It's going to be a pain working around the nest...sigh lolol
If you like to sing or even whistle it will be good to.
AH, Haha. Good luck!
I see hummingbirds. In my backyard, they are stunning.
That amazing, the cardinals are very beautiful and they have a beautiful song, at dawn they are excellent singers, God wants to have better luck than the previous ones, congratulations dear friend @reddust for the find
I can hear the Weaver of the Universes song as the birds sing, thank you @jlufer
Great idea re: using your fallen maple leaves as bedding material for your chickens and then using the composted material in your garden. I like that concept a lot. Thanks for sharing. Crazy cardinals!
I Just closed the hen house up and had to walk by the cardinals nest. This time the hen didn't yell at me! Maybe we can work together?
It's such a waste bagging and dumping leaves from my yard and hauling them to the city dump. In the fall we end up with 3 feet of leaves in my side yard. Through the winter I keep the bare dirt covered in the hens run. They break the leaves down into a light fluffy compost. Perfect for flower and garden beds. Thank you @rebeccaryan🌱
Well, I think that's fantastic sustainability. Well done!
I wish they would take the leaves to the dump here, or to the woods across the street. On the lake in the Fall you cant see the other shore for all the leaf burning fires. Its beyond ridiculous!
I had this same problem.
And if I didn't walk quietly enough I would startle the mother, and she would fly into the wall.
I have tried talking to them about building a nest somewhere else, but they just don't understand how the perfect place the picked out is not a good place.
You cannot reason with their hormones, my chickens are the same way. So I figure I'm going about my daily business and mind my own business, try not to smash into the bushes when gardening. I report back if the eggs hatch.