(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Daily Bucket Friday Sequence: Abnormal Cardinal Feeding Young [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2022-08-12 This Cardinal with a major abnormality appears to be asking for my approval to feed it's youngster. This pic is photo #1 in the sequence. Careful, looking at it may make your eyes dizzy. Before you ask, NO, I am not nearly good enough in photoshop to pull off a trick like this. I also cannot verify if it had the same abnormality on the other side of it's head. I only saw this side before it took off over the house and into the timber out back. This Friday sequence features a Cardinal with an amazing facial abnormality in the process of feeding it’s young. These photos were shot through the double pane window in my front door so they are not as sharp as I would prefer, but they certainly enable a view of something I have never before seen, and I’m not talking about feeding babies. Cardinals are permanent residents here. THE DAILY BUCKET IS A NATURE REFUGE. WE AMICABLY DISCUSS ANIMALS, WEATHER, CLIMATE, SOIL, PLANTS, WATERS AND NOTE LIFE’S PATTERNS. WE INVITE YOU TO NOTE WHAT YOU ARE SEEING AROUND YOU IN YOUR OWN PART OF THE WORLD, AND TO SHARE YOUR OBSERVATIONS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW. Flint Hills of Kansas 2022 The lead photo is the first of this five shot sequence. You will surely notice the abnormality of the adult Cardinal which appears to be looking for approval to feed the youngster. Careful these pics don’t make you go cross-eyed! Pop Cardinal begins the feeding session. The abnormality is a second eye socket exactly like the upper one except the lower addition has no eyeball. The youngsters cares not one whit, and probably wonders where when it’s second eyehole will grow. ZOOM Cardinal feeding process. These sessions outside the nest are intended to train the young how to find and secure their own food. ZOOM The adult Cardinal adjusts it’s posture to make feeding go more smoothly. By slanting the beak horizontally the youngster is able to close it’s beak to remove the food as the adult backs it’s beak out. Juvie closes it’s beak down to remove the food, completing the sequence. I have kept a close eye out (no pun intended) in an effort to examine this abnormal Cardinal again, but this first sighting was also the last to date. This happened right outside my front door in our bird feeder area. Most of my birding these days is spent up at the pond and primarily targets Swallows. However, there are a lot of other things that use our small pond besides Swallows. While waiting for the Swallows to do their magic so I can try to do mine I see other subjects who attempt to make me lose my focus on Swallows! When that happens I get a pic but usually miss out on chances for the real reason I’m there. Dragonflies are a continuous distraction. They fly about like Swallows do, except on a smaller scale. When your fast twitch is tuned to Swallows the darting of a dragonfly into your field of vision can drive you nuts. This little predator has TEETH between those huge eyes. ZOOM An artsy pic of a common dragonfly at the pond perched right along the side of my cedar shaded 'blind' at the SE corner of our pond. My ‘blind’ is nothing but an overturned bucket I sit on while waiting for a chance to catch a Swallow creating that magic moment. Someone else was noticing the dragonflies too. My first ever sighting of a Green Heron did more than just notice. It was hunting those little hunters! Predator became prey. I am sure if you look close you will see this Green Heron has caught a dragonfly for lunch. I pulled this photo out of a Friday Sequence diary coming your way before too long. You will have to look at zoom to get a conclusive view of the dragonfly. ZOOM Watching the action was this frog of significant size who was perched on the pond dam. Is this the frog I called Jeremiah? I think this guy may be even larger. Those tufts of grass are 6-8 inches tall. He would make a fairly major meal for a Green Heron which, unless it stretches it’s neck to utmost, is little more than double the height of that sitting frog. But for a Great Blue Heron four feet tall Jeremiah would seem like a snack. This GBH arrived on August 5th, but only stayed for about half an hour. Much higher in the sky I noticed another appearance of a Red Tail hawk. I also saw it about a week ago and was elated as our hawks vacated the area for the first time ever that I know of. It is wonderful to see they are beginning to return. Red Tail hawk flying over the pond. 8/1/22 It sure felt good to be taking pics of a hawk again. The same hawk returned four days later. 8/5/22 That’s it for my part of this Friday Sequence. I’d love to hear, and if possible see, what abnormalities you have encountered in the natural world. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/12/2114079/-Daily-Bucket-Friday-Sequence-Abnormal-Cardinal-Feeding-Young Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/