Right outside our screened-in porch, a female cardinal laid three eggs in a nest that she built inside one of our potted plants. We had a perfect view of all the activity going on inside the nest. These photos cover several days and end with the day that the last one left the nest. The final two photos are of a dedicated male cardinal who took over after the eggs hatched and spent his week feeding the chicks and keeping the nest clean. His watchful eye was constantly on the hatchings, and he showed up immediately if anything got too close to the nest. He implemented diversion tactics to draw attention away from them and onto himself. After the last one left the nest, he encouraged the fledgling to fly, and coaxed it to safe places in the yard. His devotion to his little ones appeared unending.
“The greatest lessons I learned from my father didn’t come from lectures or discipline or even time spent together. What has stuck with me is his example. From watching, I chose whether to be or not to be like him.” ~Richelle E. Goodrich
walking on a country road 
Ha, cute-ugly! 😉 But boy, they transform into beautiful adults!
Yes, they have humble beginnings. 🙂
Such darling bird photos.
They were really fun to watch.
How wonderful to be able to observe this cardinal family and share it all with us 😊
It really was! Thanks, Belinda.
Wonderful captures! Great work following it from the beginning.
Perfect for Father’s Day.
Thanks! It’s always puzzled me why the cardinals keep coming back to the same place each year to build their nest when it would seem that there are many other more private places in the yard to do so.
Lucky you Rebecca! Great shots too!
My Raven friends brought their young over for the first time this year! Sort of to introduce them to me I suspect.
One of them found a pigeon with a bad wing.
Daddy (Robbie) watched as one of his chicks killed it. As gruesome as it was I bet Robbie was very proud.
Initiation into nature. Yes, I imagine that he was proud. Thanks, Wayne.
What a great collection of photos Rebecca. How fun to watch the process from incubation to fledging. In the video that stubborn youngster didn’t want to take the food – must have been veggies. 🙂 I found a Robin’s nest last Saturday and the baby was quite big, so I had only three days to watch before the baby, (only one), fledged. I never noticed the nest as it was up high, so my pictures aren’t close-up like these.
I think the little fledgling was quite overwhelmed. It had just left the nest for the first time that morning, so had made great strides during the day. The Dad was working very hard to coax it off the ground and up onto the branches of a nearby bush. It was all very interesting to watch.
You are lucky you were right on top of the action with the nest in the pot. Very interesting to watch and chronicle too. Years ago my neighbor had a pair of Mourning Doves and they built a nest on her deck in an empty, low wire planter and she loved watching them incubating, then she watched the parents raise it (only one survived), then teach the baby to fly, She was sad when they left her deck/yard for good.
I understand how your neighbor felt. It is disappointing when the last one leaves the nest. Watching them was both interesting and enjoyable.
She could see the nest from her doorwall and would e-mail me photos daily – you both were lucky to have an up-close look at those birds.
What an amazing sequence of images. How exciting you were able to observe and document the entire process! Thank you for sharing these special impressions.