12 TH BE 7AU D:U BtONe (BU eee ee 
tanager. This was the first time I had ever seen one on the ground. It had 
rained recently and worms were plentiful, so I gathered a few and threw 
them near the tanager. He didn’t seem at all frightened and soon came 
right up to me in pursuit of more worms. On my previous observations 
of tanagers they had always seemed shy and very cautious, but not this 
one. I began to believe that something was wrong with his wing, so I took 
off my jacket and threw it over him. While carrying him home he got 
away from me, but was easy prey for my jacket once again. When I got 
him home I examined him carefully, but found nothing wrong. I then 
decided to give him his freedom, but as before he flew only a short distance 
and began to scratch around again. My opinion was that he was someone’s 
pet before venturing north and, therefore, was not afraid of human beings. 
Gordon Stastny is a freshman at Morton High School. 
ia ie fl 
An Observant Cardinal 
By HARRIETTE A. EGGER 
SOMEONE TOLD me last summer that cardinals could be attracted to a 
feeding shelf with sunflower seeds. I live in the city away from wooded 
lots, but my son built a small table to be placed under a tree in the back 
yard, and, to our great delight, it was visited by not only cardinals, but 
other birds as well. On several occasions when that shelf was empty, 
thanks to squirrels, sparrows and blue jays, the cardinals flew to a tree 
near our back porch and whistled, which we interpreted as a call for 
seeds, so I felt we could coax them to a shelf on the porch. My mother’s 
greeting when I returned from a vacation was, ‘‘What do you think has 
happened?” and to my great joy, she told me that the cardinals were feed- 
ing on the porch. They became so tame that they would sit in the tree 
over the shelf and whistle. 
This fall I took my car out of the garage to go on an errand and 
when I returned and was closing the door, I saw the mother cardinal 
sitting in a tree in front of the garage. When I came out the side door, 
she was watching there for me and flew over my head to the porch where 
she waited until I came out with seeds. She seemed to know that I would 
come back to the garage and waited there for me. 
It has been a lovely sight in winter to see these beautiful red birds 
outlined against the snowy background and their visits have been among 
our greatest joys. Our porch feeding shelf has been a great delight to 
many people and several have become interested in feeding at their own 
homes. 
In the spring orioles and robins also come to the porch and one year 
we welcomed a rose-breasted grosbeak. I feed the orioles bananas, the 
robins raisins and apples. It is quite a job at times to take care of the 
bird menus but I find it well worth the trouble. 
Chicago, Ill. 
