Right in front of my kitchen window is a bird bath, sitting below this huge old cedar tree. It is amazingly popular, especially in the morning. Blue jays, robins, doves, grackles. a slew of slightly differing ‘little brown birds’ I cannot distinguish between. Also the occasional hawk, who makes everyone else vanish instantly.
The one I notice the most is a male cardinal. He shows up virtually every morning for a drink and quick dip. The sun slips in from beyond the cedar branches and lights him up like a spotlight. I swear, he sometimes looks like he’s on fire! (I guess Mrs. Cardinal is around, too, but she’s not an attention whore like he is.)
Beyond the birdbath area, maybe 15 feet away, is an ancient rhododendron bush that has grown (ignored) into a sprawling mass nearly two dozen feet in diameter. The birds love it, of course. The leaves form a nearly solid green mound, but inside it’s mostly empty space with a maze of old twisty branches. This is where they mainly go when the hawk shows up – I guess the leaf covering and mass of branches is too much for a hawk to simply sail through on a stoop.
Anyway, a couple days ago I saw a splot of brilliant red on the bush. Down low, on the side towards my window. I noticed it a couple times that day, at various times, and figured out that the cardinal must have chosen it as one of the spots he used to proclaim his ownership of the local territory. He would sit there so long, quite still, patient, calm. I thought it was kind of dangerous, there are feral cats in the neighborhood and this was well within their leap range, but the cardinal seemed to find it acceptable, and who was I to override his opinion?
Yesterday I had one of my sisters over for lunch, and at one point I told her about the cardinal hanging out so close to the ground. She looked at me. You mean the big bush just beyond the cedar? Yes. She got up, went to window to look out, than stepped out the door onto the back porch for a moment. She came back in and gave me this look. What kind of a bush is it? A rhoddy, I said. Uh, huh, she says. You mean, the kind that has huge brilliant red flowers in the spring?
Uh. Oh. Um. Ooops. Yes, I’ve been admiring the first opened blossom of this year. Have I ever mentioned how crap my eyesight it? I’ve had diabetic retinopathy for years. Plus cataracts that are now at the point the doctor says are ‘mature enough’ for surgery anytime I want to man up and face the op … I’m just chicken. Maybe this is the sign…
Sister#2 called me today, and before she hung up she asked me if my cardinal is still safe. 
I told her her was, in fact, so safe he’s brought his entire gang to join in and I can hardly see any leaves on the bush at all now for all the red birds!
