Wednesday, July 04, 2007

project 365 #184: cardinal on stone fountain

This guy and his wife/girlfriend/significant other live in the holly tree in the Pack Place Rhino Courtyard. I want to get pictures of the whole family but so far I've only got him. Last year they had a particularly demanding child - I watched them try to teach him how to fly and it was hilarious. Parenting techniques and parental exasperation cross all species' boundaries, I swear, because the totally fed up look on both the parent cardinals' faces had to be seen to be believed as their youngster squawled and hollered from first the tree and then the ground and then the tree again as first one and then the other parent swooped down, said something encouraging and nudged him a little. Then they would get fed up and yell at him. Presumably he eventually learned to fly and left home and his parents breathed a sigh of relief and then, not having learned a damn thing from their traumatic experience with a teenager, started the whole proceedings all over again this year. Which is sort of what I did 15 years ago but now it's all coming back to me in terrible clarity as I imagine it is to Dad Cardinal, here.

In other news, here is a list:

Holidays Dogs Hate:
4th of July
Halloween
New Years Eve

Holidays Dogs Like:
Christmas
Thanksgiving
Labor & Memorial Day

Holidays Dogs Don't Care About:
Easter

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hahah, nice list. My poor pooch had a very bad night last night- must have been fireworks in the neighborhood, though I didn't hear any. She was running around, jumping on me and holding on for dear life- even got up on my desk and tried to hide behind the computer.

Edgy Mama said...

So far, the Bisc hasn't reacted to either loud thunder, sirens from the nearby fire station, or the intermittent fireworks that the teenagers in the hood have been setting off for the past week. Maybe he's deaf? Or just remarkably brave for a seven-pound ball of fur?

mygothlaundry said...

Biscuit just isn't quite old enough to get it yet. Or something. My guys were shuddering balls of nerves last night - they kept trying to get into bed with me.

Lee H. said...

Sometime between 6pm and 8pm, when we'd had dinner and decided to bring the dogs inside away from any fireworks that might be happening, someone in the neighborhood started setting off firecrackers and we didn't hear them in the house. Our wolfhound, who was still outside, got so freaked out she chewed a big raw, bleeding place on her butt. *sigh*

Tower of strength, she isn't. But we felt horrible that it happened.