Cardinals Hate My Vehicles
I don’t quite understand this, so I put it to you to explain to me.
I’m not talking about the baseball team or anything, but seriously, someone needs to explain this to me.
First a little background…
I live in a very wooded neighborhood, so by extension we have a lot of birds around. It also doesn’t help that my neighbor has like 10 bird feeders in his yard and we have 1 too.
We have a number of Cardinals living around us as a result. Cardinals aren’t particularly smart birds, this I know because they go apeshit if they see their reflection. We used to have a particular window in our house that would get attacked during certain times of the year. My only guess is that the sun is just right during those times of the year and they see themselves in the window and wage all out bird-war. There’s no harm done except sometimes it’s a little startling to hear the THUD-peck-peck-peck of the bird fighting itself.
Here is where my problem comes into play. In the time that we have lived in our house (going on 4 years now) I have owned 2 vehicles and my wife has owned 2 vehicles. Currently I own a Dodge Dakota, previously it was a Chrysler Pacifica, in both cases, the cardinals would attack my side view mirrors. This doesn’t just happen at certain times of the year, it happens year round, summer, spring, fall, and especially winter.
So you say to yourself, they see their reflection in the mirror and they go apeshit and attack the reflection, nothing more. But that’s not the case, because they don’t TOUCH my wife’s car. They never have, except one year they really took a fancy to making sweet-sweet bird love on the roof of her car (frequently). It’s only ever been my cars. So maybe it’s where I park? Not the case. Often, in the summer I park my car in the street so the kids can ride their bikes around on the driveway, my truck still gets attacked. Also, it’s almost always the driver side mirror. I just don’t get it.
The other thing is, these birds have balls! I’ve pulled up into the driveway, and before I shut my truck off, a cardinal has perched on the top of my mirror and started pecking at the mirror below it, all the while the vehicle is still running and I’m sitting there watching it.
Currently the driver side mirror is so dirty from the birds pecking at it, I can’t see out of it. I’ll try to post a pic of it when I can think to snap a picture.
So does anyone have any idea why these birds pick on my vehicles and not my wife’s?
This post was pointless, but I want to know.
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Comments
This is starting to sound a little too Alfred Hitchcock…
IF they weren’t songbirds I’d suggest something on the order of a Beeman R9, or, with the appropriate backstop, a Ruger 77/22.
As it stands, how about setting up a decoy? Goto Lowe’s, but a 1×1 foot mirror tile for a few bucks, and affix it to something around your garage.
On the other hand, it may be better if the birds attack something you lease (your vehicle) verses something you own (you garage).
The way I found this blog, was I was searching the net to try and find an answer to why my vehicle is loved by a certain Cardinal. In my case, instead of it being the driver’s side mirror, it’s the passenger side. The Cardinal will come up as soon as I pull into my driveway – it then pecks the front passenger window as I am coming to a stop. As soon as I am out of the vehicle, it gets in position on the mirror and starts pecking away. I have also seen it perched on the windshield wiper on the passenger side – pecking on the windshield. I finally asked the friend of mine I bought my Tahoe from, if he had ever had that problem. Same thing…passenger side mirror, to where he finally tied a plastic bag around it when it was in his driveway. He wondered if the same Cardinal searched until it found the vehicle again. 
So weird!
Ha.. that’s awesome! I don’t get it.. for me it’s different vehicles but same mirror and everything. It doesn’t really matter where I park. Currently it’s not happening, but I think it’s something to do with the time of the year. I haven’t seen them around much right now, it’s been a rough winter. But I expect them any time now. It’s getting close to mating season, so I expect them to get back and start terrorizing my mirror.
Thanks for the post!
You should probably ask this guy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpKAOzzxGPM