Mates for Life

A few days ago, I came home with The Boy in tow to find a poor dead cardinal bird on the deck by the patio doors. I know from seeing it happen before that this poor little bird must have hit the glass patio doors hard or repeatedly. Birds are flying into that thing all the time. I took The Boy inside before he saw the bird and went back out to dispose of the poor thing.

The bird on the deck was sad enough, but it just gets sadder. After getting into the house, we let the dog out. Atty kept growling and looking under a set of shelves on the side of the deck. I finally went out to see what the deal was and I just melted. Underneath the shelves tucked back into the corner was a female cardinal bird, they are tan. She was cowering in the corner. She was, I am sure, waiting on her mate. I got Atty inside and the bird finally flew up to the porch railing and just started calling over and over again. This kept up most of the night. So sad, she was missing her mate.

This made me wonder if Cardinal birds mate for life. Here are some facts I found...

1. The male cardinal fiercely defends its breeding territory from other males. When a male sees its reflection in glass surfaces, it frequently will spend hours fighting the imaginary intruder. (Read Cause of Death for our poor bird.)
2. There seems to be some evidence that Cardinals do indeed spend the entire year with the same partner. But saying that they mate for life gives us the impression that they spend decades of bliss together, the fact is, a Cardinal life expectancy isn't much longer than a year.

So, this poor female cardinal, I assume, has lost her mate....

It is nice to see another species, so far from ours mating for "life."