A couple of weeks ago, Hardingfele and I took a walk at
lunch, and while we were in the Allen Centennial Gardens, the bald cardinal
alit on the path in front of us and hopped ahead of us. I tried to take another
picture of him, but once again he escaped as soon as he saw the camera come
out. Then today at lunch I was walking in the gardens when I saw a woman taking
photos with one of those giant camera lenses across the path. I paused,
thinking it was a little rude of her to block the path like that but not
wanting to interrupt her photo, and then she put down the camera.
“It’s a baby cardinal,” she said, pointing at a young
cardinal hopping around in a tree.
“There’s a bald cardinal too,” I said, and she pointed to
where the cardinal was standing on the ground.
“He was feeding the baby,” she told me. “But he’s not really
bald – his feathers are just kind of light on top.”
Indeed, the cardinal is no longer bald. He just looks a bit
bedraggled now. Whatever was afflicting him, he must be in recovery mode. The
people who work in the garden said the bald cardinal has been around for at
least three years, so I am wondering if his issue is seasonal, and whatever
causes his feathers to fall out is dissipating with the shorter days and cooler
nights. Maybe by next month he will look like a classic male cardinal, with a
bold, beautiful crest, and maybe that is why the Polar Vortex didn’t kill him –
he had feathers on his head to keep him warm at that time. The mystery deepens…
Famous Hat
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