A Moral Dilemma

My kitchen window looks down on a large shrub. I think it’s a cardinal bush. It was here when we bought this place in 1976 so I’m not sure about that. If that is the right name it certainly is appropriate because many years cardinals choose to build a nest in it.

Inevitably this choice ends in disaster. Seen from the outside one wouldn’t spot the nest.

But from the window I look down into the nest. While washing dishes I have witnessed both squirrels and the neighbor’s cats steal baby birds from it while the parents shriek and flutter about. Not one baby bird has survived there.

Over this past weekend we watched another cardinal couple construct a nest in the cardinal bush. It is beautifully made with a strong foundation of sticks, topped with increasingly smaller ones and a final layer of soft leaves. The mother hasn’t yet deposited eggs in it.

Shortly after the nest was finished, a cowbird discovered it. No doubt the cowbird has plans to destroy the cardinals’ eggs and replace them with her own. Cowbirds are too damn lazy to raise their own kids, so they dupe other birds into doing all the work. The cardinals wouldn’t know the difference and would be excellent foster parents. Of course the cowbird babies would be eaten by squirrels and cats, so all would come to naught.

Here’s my dilemma: should I destroy the nest before eggs are laid, thus saving the cardinals (and myself) the anguish of another disaster, or should I mind my own business and let nature take its course? How I dread watching this familiar drama unfold!

Postscript: Two days later the nest is still empty of eggs. Maybe the cardinals caught on to the cowbird's game. Maybe they made the nest as a second home. No matter the cause, I'm relieved to look down on an empty nest.

Copyright 2013 by Shirley Domer