North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Kieran &/or Donna" <holycow@frontiernet.net>]

Kevin,  What state are you in?  You are the first person I have ever heard sympathize with me on the cardinals.  I have to cover peas when I plant in the spring to keep them from pulling them up and eating the seeds, then I have to fight them for the crop.  I have to cover crowder pea plantings, and then they harvest the crowder peas.  They often shell out an entire long pod of peas, but worse than that is when the peas aren't ready yet and they damage the pods trying to get them out, then leave the pods to rot.  They live on chicken feed all year round, and now that we have switched to cracked corn rather than whole corn for the banties, the cardinals are thrilled.  Because they are resident birds instead of migrants, they wait eagerly for my crops to come in each year.  I haven't noticed whether the cardinals are really into the blueberries.  When I pick peas, they sit up in the trees and complain about the inconvenience of having to wait on me.  My husband says yes, that cardinals have been in the blueberries and complained about him picking their food. 

    I know there always seem to be a lot of cardinals at our place, but I think since we got rid of a couple of bird-hunting cats and switched to cracked corn, they have probably fledged more youngsters than usual.  OH, and the snakes have been so busy eating all the mice and voles fed by '08's enormous mast crop (esp beechnuts, which sprouted thick as grass in the woods) that they hardly touched our chicken eggs till recently.  Probably there was much less snake pressure on the cardinal nests too.  Is it legal to shoot them?  I would guess not.  Guess I could feed the evidence to the cats.     Donna