I have recently added a walk-through rose and wisteria arbor to my garden. It is immediately outside my back screened porch, and when I sit on my porch, watching my birds perching on my arbor, I feel like I’m playing a part in the movie Swiss Family Robinson.

No, I don’t live in an aerie, but because I have dotted birdfeeders all along my arbor, my birds are happy to spend time with me–nearer to ground level.

We are experiencing an abnormally cool spell for July in Mississippi. A rain cloud seems to be stalled overhead my garden, and it is refreshingly drizzly and showering weather. I haven’t been able to work outside much, but I was able to add a birdfeeder that is just outside my screened porch.

Because I have a nature-watching chair on my screened porch, I can sit on my porch, with my feet propped up, and watch my birds as they drop in and out of view.

Today, all the ususal crew took turns lighting and eating for a few minutes on and off, but there was one bird that I didn’t readily recognize. I wrote in my journal; “It is a semi-large, rusty brown bird with no spots on his chest,” I went inside and googled that information, but Google insisted that I was looking at a Brown Thrasher, but I knew that was not true. Brown Thrashers do have spots on their chests, and yes, they had visited me several times that day.

The bird continued to drop in, and I was plagued by my lack of understanding about which bird this one was.

Periodically, a gorgeous red cardinal would flash across the sea of green along the border of my garden, he was brilliant. Occasionally, he would chase a bird that looked vaguely like my mystery bird. Could my mystery bird be a female cardinal? But I didn’t see a crest on my mystery bird’s head.

I googled again: :”Do the crests on top of cardinals’ heads ever seem to be flat?”

“YES!

“The distinctive crest can be raised and pointed when agitated or lowered and barely visible while resting. ” Caring Cardinals

The mystery was solved. I was looking at the same old cardinals in my garden, but now that they were only a few feet from my chair, I could truly see them, AHHHH! What a Luxury!

The Birds Who Love to Perch on My New Walk-Through Rose and Wisteria Arbor