Pat Bean's blog

Aging My Way

Looking out my bedroom sliding glass door, I saw a red bird sitting on the fence, exactly where mourning doves sit almost daily, and where once in a while a Cooper’s Hawk perches, quickly frightening the doves to scatter.fla

One of the hawk’s favorite meals is smaller birds.

And that includes the Northern Cardinal, the male red bird that graced me with his presence as I drank my cream-laced coffee this morning. I suspected the less colorful female was nearby, but I see her far less often.

The cardinal is one of the birds I grew up with, for a long time knowing it only as the red bird. It’s now become one of the few birds whose voice I can recognize. Sometimes it sounds like cheer-cheer-cheer, other times like pre-tty, pre-tty, pre-tty. Since it doesn’t migrate from season to season, it’s always around, although it’s often called the winter bird.

Photographers and artists love to capture its brilliant red feathers against a snowy background, and Christmas cards abound with such images. Another example of this red bird’s popularity is that seven states – Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia – call it their state bird.

And it’s the mascot for Arizona’s NFL football team. I note this last because since I have now lived in Tucson for 10 years, it’s something I should know.

But what I like best about the cardinal is that it was my grandmother’s favorite bird. And seeing one always reminds me of her.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.