Cardinal Bird Feeder

I’ve seen destruction of habitat since I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago Illinois most of my life. Our block was 3 houses near remnants of glacier sloughs, natural praries, and rolling hills. Bulldozers scraped away the soils and my home town went from about 500 people to 14,000 today. Gone are the snakes, toads, frogs, native bees, birds, butterflies. All but gone are tumble weeds. Natural flowers along our highways have been nearly replaced by non-natrive invasive species from far off other continents. To see a frog or a snake or a turtle out fishing is like seeing bigfoot or the sasquatch. It is becoming more and more rare to see these. I’m glad bluejays and black capped chickadees and northern cardinals are coming back. All winter I’ve see robins in the thickest brushy areas of the forest preserves. It’s like they’ve never left. You have to look good, but robins are nearby Chicago. Then I go fishing an catch northern pike, sauger, and walleye in somewhat polluted streams.Why?

The rich greens and browns of the woods nearly sparkle in the crisp morning air. At least, to me they do. I wander somewhat aimlessly through the trees and bushes. The sun pokes through openings in the canopy of newly bloomed leaves above me. The sweet aroma of wood and grass fills me up. A few birds can be spotted in the branches. Blue Jays and Cardinals.
A log cottage slowly comes into view. After wandering so far, Polly must be wondering where I am, so I push through the solid oak door and step inside.
Immediately the four women rush toward me with worry marks on their foreheads. They have always been so protective of me, I don’t know why. When I ask, they simply shake their heads and go about their business, scrubbing pots or cutting roots or . I am engulfed in hugs, but the praise doesn’t last long.
Erosia hands me a pile of dirty clothes. “Go do the wash, dear. When you come back you may have noon meal.” And with that I am pushed right out the door again and the door is shut behind me.
“I wonder what could possibly be going on in there.” I think aloud. I shouldn’t complain, I have been willing to do the harder chores, but all I am even allowed to do is the wash and the sweeping and the gathering. I would like to prepare the meals, to freshen up my skills for when I am wed, but my asking is not tolerated in my home. I gave up two years ago, and settled with preoccupying my mind with other things, such as daydreaming of princes and talking frogs.
I plop down on the side of the brook that we use to wash in. My birthday is tomorrow. I guess I’ll daydream about that. I hold a yellow tunic under the water.
Tomorrow I turn sixteen. I’ve lived with these four women for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was ten they told me that my parents died of the sickness when I was two years old. So I came to live with my mother’s closest friends. Now I realize it’s silly to daydream about princes, since I am a forest girl, and I will marry a forest boy. Only princesses marry princes. Everyone knows that.
I dunk a blue skirt into the cold water and scrub. None of the neighboring boys catch my eye. Most are too young. The older ones excite over their muscles and tanned arms. They boast of their looks and strength.
I finish up the wash of skirts and tunics and head back toward the cottage. The sun is high in the sky, directly above me. It is baking my back to a crisp. Lugging the pile of wet clothes, I go around our house out back to hang up the clothes. As soon as I see my heirloom bench pushed up against the cottage in the patch of sunlight, I remember that I forgot my studies this morning. In the warmer days, I sit and read on that bench because it’s in a warm, peaceful spot. In the morning of every day I must study the books that have been passed down to me from my mother. There are books on arithmetic, language, history, and the ancestors of the royal family. As for me, I have never even caught a glimpse of any king, queen, or anyone royal, but I expect they are awfully stuck up and rude.
I hang up the clothes on the thin rope we have that runs about fifteen feet from one tree to the other, and go inside to see what I’ve been set to eat.

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I know I used ‘I’ a lot, but I don’t know how to get rid of them without my writing sounding like crap. Suggestions are welcome

we like to build bird houses. when we paint them, we would like to know if birds are attracted to any particular color, so we can paint them to attract more birds.

my area has a few set of cardinals and blue jays what are some ways to accommodate these types of birds so that they will stay around for along time. types of foods / housing suggestions will help?

In the winter we went to a garage sale where i bought a small, plain little cardinal birdhouse for a quarter. I painted it with small roses and the door hole with a green rim, sealed the outside, and when spring arrived, I hung it in the tree in our backyard. We have a pair of cardinals in our tree, but not the birdhouse, they sit on the feeder and sometimes the little stopper for them to stand on in front of the house, but they never went inside. Just yesterday, I got really frustrated and went out to look at the house because I wanted to know why the beautiful red birds are so repulsed. Inside, i found a wasp nest, and a fat queen laying eggs inside. I have a terrible fear of flying stingers, and taking the birdhouse apart is not an option. How can I take them out, kill them, and keep them out for good without taking the birdhouse apart and repulsing birds?
I’m looking for serious answers.

For the Winter, my family places feeders around the backyard. We get a variety of birds like blue jays and cardinals. We also realized that we are getting some morning doves, but the feeders we have are too small, a small house shaped feeder and three stocking feeders, is there a certain type of feeder that i need, is there anyway i could make a simple feeder for the "big birds". Any advice would be nice.

It’s the strangest thing. My dog sits in front of the window all day and looks outside, it’s one of his favorite things to do. All sorts of birds come and go throughout the day, sparrows, mourning doves, cardinals, crows. He doesn’t bark at any of them. In fact, just the other day a sparrow got into the house and he hardly paid it any heed! He just glanced up as it flew by every so often. He was more excited by my activity trying to catch it than by the bird. (I got it out safe and sound.)

But he goes crazy any time he sees a chipmunk outside. The chipmunk is about the size of a sparrow and has the same patterns and coloring. He barks and jumps up and down and turns circles for a long time after it leaves. Why is that?
My dog is a maltese.

My mom goes outside every night to let the dogs inside and she always sees something different. Usually after she sees them, something strange happens. A few weeks ago she saw a cardinal outside I assume in the pecan tree. Last Friday my house was broken into and everything important was stolen. The day after, I received a letter from the high school of my dreams I have been wanting to get into since second grade, and I was denied. My portfolio was perfect, my auditions went really well, and I was confident. But it broke my heart knowing i couldn’t go.

Tonight, my mom walked outside and saw a baby owl, just sitting by our empty pool. I’m not sure whats going to happen, so is there an expert on omens anywhere here who can tell me what the BIRDS mean and does the cardinal relate to my experience?

I need to know what order each of these individual species of birds belongs to. Easy best answer for first complete and correct answerer.
Common grackle, Dark eyed junco, white throated sparrow, blue jay, red bellied woodpecker, cardinal, snow goose, american crow, house finch, great blue heron, canada goose, american gold finch, eastern bluebird, carolina chickadee, white breasted nuthatch, tufted titmouse, wild turkey, american robin, mourning dove, bufflehead duck, northern hammer, turkey vulture, and barnacle goose.

Thanks.

A cardinal built a nest in the entryway to my house. It hatched several baby birds but eventually the nest fell over. I put on gloves and placed them in a small box that contained the remainder of their nest plus some grass.

Right now I am unable to tell whether or not the birds are being taken care of by the mother and father. A few days ago I saw both of them fluttering around the entryway but I have since not seen either one directly in there.

The baby birds appear to be generating waste and look healthy to me, but I am by no stretch an expert. I can’t tell whether or not the parents are still taking care of them or if the birds are running off reserves.

Can anybody with knowlege of this sort of thing give me some good advice about what to do with the birds?