The Beauty Of Nature?

 We have lots of wild visitors at our house. You've met Roxy (formerly known as Rocket J) and her three babies. You've met the possum family. You've seen some of the deer that wander thru. Did you know we also have a pair of armadillos that cross the yard to get to the farm field. I call them the living roombas because they seem to hover as they glide across the yard.

 You know that we have tons of squirrels and lots of bunnies and a big flock of wild turkeys.

We also have lots and lots of birds, from the tiny hummingbirds that chase each other around the porch to a huge Barred Owl that likes to scare us when we're out after dark. He sits in the tree above my head and lets out a loud screech. We all run for the door. Last year the pair of owls nested in a tree across the street and the little ones made such a racket that we couldn't wait for them to grow up and leave.

We have lots of robins, finches, chickadees, sparrows, blue jays, woodpeckers and others. But mostly we have Cardinals. When we first moved here we were both amazed at how many Cardinals hung around the yard. In Maryland we had a pair but here we counted at least eight pair at one time. 

But now we have something we'd never seen before. We have a pair of bald Cardinals. They look like half cardinal and half vulture. They are quite ugly and we even started calling the male"Uggo". 

I looked them up on the google and the condition can be caused by either mites or an unnatural molt. In either case the feathers are supposed to grow back in a couple weeks Wrong! Uggo and his ugly female friend have been like this for at least a month and show no signs of growing feathers on their bald heads. They don't appear to be sick. They hang around the feeder most of the day and seem to act as normal as the other birds.

Let's just hope these two don't decide to have a family of bald birds. I don't think the world is ready for flocks of blue  naked headed cardinals.