He stayed there for the longest time, perched on a branch of the Sargenti crab apple tree. Usually at this time of year it still has tiny bright red fruit which we've often seen errant robins peck at, in the winter months, those who adamantly refuse to depart for the south when winter threatens. We haven't seen any robins hanging around this winter. Perhaps their inner radar informed them that this would be a particularly wickedly cold winter in these parts.

I can recall how delighted I was forty years ago when we were living fairly close by, but in another house, to view those bright red birds flying about in the winter months, their colourful presence an absolute delight on the stark contrast between the white snowpack and the denuded foliage. As a species, originally they were a southern bird, not venturing out of the climate they were most comfortable with. But then they began to migrate at the turn of the 20th Century and entered southern Ontario, where they naturalized.

For southern Ontario, where the cardinal is now well established as a breeding bird, Saunders and Dale (1933) report:
The first record for this species was one taken at London, on November 30th, 1896. . . . They remained of very rare or casual occurrence until 1910. . . . Reports were infrequent during the next two or three years, but since about 1914 they have come to be looked upon as permanent residents, a very delightful addition indeed to our fauna. During the winter of 1916-1917, J. C. Middleton had eight Cardinals feeding at his home on The Ridgeway, London, as well as a variety of other birds. Thirty-one were reported in our Christmas Census for 1929. They often nest within the city in lilac bushes, or other shrubbery, several nests having been collected after the birds had finished with them. . . .

It took much later before they made their way further north, to the Ottawa Valley, where the first sightings were likely mid-Century. And we're the appreciative beneficiaries of seeing them, summer and winter, those gorgeous crimson-feathered mid-sized birds that zip across our range of vision during all months of the year in this climate, now. Their clear, brilliant song not to be mistaken by that of any other bird, its trills and clarity transcendentally beautiful, as lovely as the vision of the birds themselves.

They visit us occasionally in a quite personable way, by alighting close to our porch, then on the porch itself to avail themselves during this utterly frigid winter of 2013/14 of the peanuts we place out for wildlife, to help sustain them against the misery of the winter months. We watched, through the glass panes of our front door, as a cardinal sat for the longest time on the crab tree, looking constantly about him, before finally alighting on the top rail of our porch surround where peanuts had been set out. We looked on, fascinated, as he took his patient time unloosing the peanuts from their shell.

Later, my husband put out unshelled peanuts, and to our surprise, hours afterward he was back again, repeating the performance. Only this time he settled himself on the top of an ornamental aluminum loveseat that sits at the corner of the porch, remaining there for almost an hour, hunkered down, its feathers fluffed over its feet, seemingly at rest. Giving us concern over the potential of a bird's feet somehow sticking to frozen metal, or the horror of seeing one of the neighbourhood cats creeping up behind the resting bird.

None of this happened; once the cardinal decided to take a few more peanuts, he also decided to fly off. Though he's a delight to behold, we're equally fascinated by the appearance of squirrels making themselves comfortable, taking advantage of the invitation to dine. Even crows doing likewise present us with the opportunity to appreciate our closeness to nature.