Cardinals... in the yard.

At my parent's house, there's a thorny vine that grows on some lattice work on their chimney. Perched in those thorny branches is a cardinal's nest. (This is not the nest in their yard, just an example of the cardinal's nest and what cardinal eggs look like.)


Mrs. Cardinal has been spending quite a lot of time in that nest over the last few weeks, leading us to believe that some baby birdies are soon to be hatched.... My brother believes that the brood has already hatched, but I listen as close to the nest as I can possibly get and don't hear anything. Nor do I see any bobbing baby bird heads peeking out of the nest looking for mommy and food. So I just can't tell. If they are going to hatch it will be very soon, if not already. Strange though that Mr. Cardinal hasn't been more visible during this whole process...

From what I've been able to find out, cardinal eggs hatch in 11-13 days and fledge within 7-13 days after that. The common number of eggs is between 1 and 5 with 3 being the average nest size. What's cool is that, since cardinals are non-migratory birds, we might end up with more of the beauties living in or around my parents' yard or at least frequenting the bird-feeders more often.

I wonder, though - do cardinals make a new nest every year? I certainly hope so. The lattice work that is supporting the nested vine is falling off of the chimney. For fear of spoiling the new cardinal family, we've just let it hang. The lattice work will definitely need to be fixed before it snows and breaks off all together...

When we are able to repair the lattice sometime in the fall, my dad has said he wants to preserve the nest and I agree.
















(19:30 update - I've seen the babies myself. I saw at least two maybe three bobbing heads chirping like crazy and neither parent was around. I have also seen Mr. Cardinal more frequently going to and from the nest over the last 12-24 hours or so. I wish I could get some decent pics for you...)

8/8 update: There are definitely two cardinal chicks, possibly a third. I saw Mr. Cardinal feeding them today and they were chirping and bobbing like crazy. It's so cool when you can witness nature first hand like this...