So we confirmed to our best knowledge that a cowbird had parasitized our poor cardinals nest, I came home a few days ago and found that the little orange chick in the previous post was missing. I looked for it to no avail on the ground, and finally came to the conclusion that all signs point to the two remaining chicks being cowbirds. It was a hard decision but the two remaining chicks were put down, I hated to see the two parents working so hard to feed chicks that were not their own when they could be starting another brood. It sucks that two years in a row they have nested right near our deck only to be unsucessful, cat the first year and cowbird the next. I feel bad for the parents but it is over now...they can start anew.
The good news is that I found yesterday that our pair of Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks had returned to our feeders to refuel on their way to their breeding grounds. They were at the feeders almost non-stop, like they were starving, yesterday and when I got up this morning @ 6am they were there eating. I haven't seen them today so I have to think they have moved on after fattening up on our food.
This afternoon I worked in the yard triming the grass around our bushes, we had some bad storms about 50 miles north and I heard that a tornado had touched down, here a couple of pics of the clouds in that direction:
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