Now that my neighbors are also feeding the backyard birds, the competition has gotten fierce. Except for a few rare visits at sundown, I’m rarely seeing “my” cardinals anymore. I know they are cheating on me because almost every time I’m at the kitchen window I see them in my neighbor’s yard.
The question is, what’s attracting them? Is it the location of their feeders? Is the the type of feeder? Or is it the food they are serving over there? They have cats that are outside on leashes several times a day in their backyard and yet the cardinals still prefer their yard over mine.
In a wee bit of irony, as I typed that last sentence, a female cardinal stopped at my platform feeder to grab a safflower seed. I guess they haven’t given up on me entirely.
Perhaps the cardinals don’t like the current clientele at my feeders. Last I counted there were 21 Mourning Doves and 27 European Starlings jostling for space. That’s a very high number for both species for my backyard. Usually I don’t like it when Blue Jays bully the other birds, but these days I’m happy to see them show up because they’re one of the only species that seems to be gregarious enough to scare off starlings.
And the Mourning Doves get along with everyone—-I just have WAY too many of them!