An Early Return for My Annual Visitor

It’s actually a cool brisk day here in Tampa. As I write, it’s only 56 and breezy (I know, for those of you further north, that’s balmy, but here, that’s nearly cold enough to start chopping up the furniture and building fires.), so it’s got that Fall/Wintry feel…at least as much as you can have here in Florida.

Each year, usually when the weather is like this in January or February, I get a visitor. She’s been coming around every year for at least five or six years, and this year she’s about a month early. She also has a boyfriend this year. Earlier this morning I heard a tapping on the sliding glass door in the dining room. When I went to look, there she was, a cardinal tapping on the door, then flying into it trying to get in, or seeing herself in its reflection. I’m not sure which.

But the biggest surprise was a beautiful male cardinal. I snapped a picture from off to the side quickly so as not to scare them off, it’s not a great picture, but I’m including it. This year, I did something I’d been planning for several years, and ran to Lowe’s and got a bird feeder to hang on the side deck, so hopefully they’ll hang around a little longer this year, but if not, at least they have something to eat during their stop off here, and maybe they’re just stopping as they head south, and will be back again in February or March as they head north again. It’s really a very pleasant distraction each year when she comes around.