Sunday, June 14, 2009

Teenage Mutant Cardinal Birdies

This female cardinal only just showed up at the feeder, so I'm guessing she was hatched only this spring. I'm not sure what happened to her right eye, whether it was a near-fatal encounter with a predator or whether she was just born this way.

It doesn't bother her in the least and she thinks she looks like all the other cardinals, even with her little two-feather crest.



I pray she has some sight in that eye so she will avoid any further injury. I know her demise would be survival of the fittest and nature's way of protecting the strength of the gene pool, but I can't help pulling for her.

Editor's Note: Dark Garden will now commence yelling at me and telling me to take these photos down.

5 comments:

Gwynne said...

Oh, that's sad. We had a cat once, who lost his eye in a catfight. After that, he couldn't judge distance and missed a lot of jumps from counter to table and such. I hope she fares better than that!

Ari_1965 said...

I wish her the best, too. She's still beautiful.

Leslie Shelor said...

When I was a kid I always dragged home the runts and hopeless creatures. Hope Miss Cardinal thrives!

Darkgarden said...

Well I mean.. DUDE... she's all messed up!!! Man!.... Come ONNN!!! Her friggin' eye went to hell-n-gone for gosh sakes!

Sisiggy said...

So far, so good. She was back at the feeder, happy as ever.

(Do I know my brother or what...)