I moved to a cardinal area from an area that didn’t have them, and it blew my mind to see one for the first time. They are gorgeous birds. They are also annoying as fuck. But they are so pretty while they are annoying.
Sort of like my cat.
Bluejays are also pretty annoying.
During the pandemic, I was WFH and above my home office was a tree branch right above my window. It had 3 baby blue jays.
That was a rough spring/summer. Those guys were so noisy!
Go to where you’re appreciated.
That’s why I always prefer playing games with n00bs
GD smurfs ruining my casual online multiplayer game that’s totally not toxic on its own! shakes fist
I like when browsing the internet, I bump into quote like this.
Pluto is kinda hard to access.
Cardinals are definitely a good bird even in their native range. They should have used a house wren or something.
This was my thought too except i thought bluejay. Bluejays are super pretty, but people who live around them know that they’re giant assholes lol.
Boo! Hiss! You take that back!
I love my blue jays so much! They’re corvids like crows and ravens, so they are very smart and have tons of personality.
They became my buddies over Covid and I’ve gotten to watch them raise their families. They’ll call each other when they see me outside and sit in me tree and wait for me to bring them snacks. They’ll all approach in different ways, some braver, some more shy. They’ll discipline the young ones. The young ones will play with each other. They make many more calls than the harsh jeer call. They’ll do a little bobbing dance for me or each other when they’re excited.
They’ve never picked on the other songbirds. The only things I’ve seen them get upset about were crows and hawks. Though 2 did get into it with each other pretty good once.
They’re really great animals once you get over the stereotypes of them, and they are one of the things I miss every day about having to take a new job where I can’t be at home and interact with them throughout the day.
Of course, I’m mostly joking. I feel like many people who live in areas with both cardinals and blue jays are told when we’re young that they don’t get along very well and we just pick a side and stick to it lol. I love seeing blue jays too, or any corvids really. Much better than seeing all the invasive birds in my area like European starlings.
Yes, the starlings are the only ones I have to constantly remind myself that I don’t really hate them. 😂 At the end of winter they really start to destroy my feeder station.
I bought into the blue jays scorn since I grew up being told they were jerks, but it changed one day when I decided to offer one a peanut. I’ve got 7 pretty regular bird buds now.
My cardinals are pretty shy, but this year a mating pair of them learned they can get the peanuts too. I don’t see them near as much, but the lady cardinal is the more aggressive of the 2 when it comes to getting food and she will try to beat the jays too them occasionally and she can hold her own if she really wants that treat!
This day it was drizzling, so it went under by downspout to eat it’s peanut.
Just hanging out.
I didn’t see what spooked this one, but this was the most unusual photo I got of one of them.
Why are these photos so posterized?
I don’t know what that is, so that is probably a contributing factor.
They’re from my phone camera zoomed to the max, shot through my patio door and/or nylon screen at a bad angle, and Google’s AI color correction.
They aren’t meant to wow with their technicality, just quick snaps of my outdoor friends. 😉
I don’t know what that is, either, but I love these pics of your feathery friends!
Oh you can support both unless they meet in the WS, then it is cardinals all the way.
At least bluejay are blue. They’ve got that going for them. Look at this thing it looks so generic.
Looks like an aerial surveillance drone IMO
They keep choking in the first round of the playoffs, too. I guess it goes with the blue-and-white colour scheme.
Cardinals are loyal. They don’t bail once the weather turns cold and ride the winter out like a true Midwesterner
So the moral of this comic is that you’re always more appreciated when you show up and contribute somewhere people aren’t expecting to find you in.
For example, a certain Academy Award nominated actress, in the comment section of a niche tech forum.
But where will we find one of those?
Maybe we can lure one out from the Hollywoods by promising her an Oscar this year.
(And by telling her she has beautiful feathers.)
Is this the real Margot Robbie, the actress? I demand proof
That’s esteemed Academy Award nominated (and soon, winning) character actress Margot Robbie to you!
Even better it’s the real Margot Robbie, the Android community moderator.
Never have I heard someone say they were bored of cardinals, even where they’re common; everyone gets excited when they see one around here :)
I agree. They are common where I live and I don’t usually see a lot of them, but they a beautiful birds.
It’s especially great that they aren’t migratory birds, so you get to see these fattened little red fluffballs all winter. They really look striking against the snow.
Same with robins, they’re an incredibly common bird, but they are also so handsome.
Yes! I love seeing fat robins especially because their little red waistcoats make it so much more pronounced haha. They’re very cute, 10/10 bird.
Am Australian, can confirm. Seeing my first wild cardinal and bluejay were like what seeing an echidna or koala for the rest of the world would be like (except I went to them, rather than them come to me like the comic)… You’ve seen them on TV, now there they are IRL, like meeting a celebrity.
Was very special seeing a squirrel for the first time, and a woodpecker. Growing up in the southern hemisphere isn’t just cool for the unusual animals we have, but for the ‘common’ animals we don’t.
Whoa, you guys don’t have squirrels?? That is somehow very interesting to me
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This is like why I emigrated, except it didn’t work
Got go somewhere where humans are rare.
So Svalbard or Antarctica it is.
State bird of Indiana. Pretty common, but I always get excited when I see one.
This is a really moving and inspiring comic! I really felt for the cardinal when it was angrily reading the book, and then felt so happy for it when it was enjoying the admiration of the Oregonians. Wholesome!
I miss hearing cardinals quite a lot. I moved from the Midwestern US to western Canada and have enjoyed learning the new birds (even bought the Audubon western bird guide to go with my old copy of eastern). I haven’t seen a Cardinal at all out here, but they’ve been photographed on rare occasions. I’m honestly just thankful that we still get robins every spring. It’s a nice reminder of home.
Better to be a big fish in a small pond, than a small fish in a big pond.
I live right at the northern tip of their range. I’d never seen one in person until 2 years ago. Now they’re a common sight in my back yard, and it’s amazing.
I super didn’t expect them to sound like car alarms, though.
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Blue jays are my faaavorite (next to my crowbros of course) 💙🖤
I love it when I’m on a road trip and can get a photo of me next to the “welcome to this state” sign. It’s not an easy task. Rarely are those signs positioned in tourist photo-friendly places.
Usually along a high-speed highway with no place to turn out and park. So you just zoom by it and wish you could have taken a picture.
