we got to watch a mama cardinal build a nest in a small balsam tree beside our deck this spring.  she carefully laid a piece of birch bark on the third highest bough of the head-high tree, then built a careful concave swirl of dried grasses, into which she deposited, on three consecutive days, three brown-mottled bluish eggs. we know all this because our nine year old son gave twice daily reports, after first confirming, each time, that mama was not sitting on the eggs and would not be disturbed by his investigations. two of the three eggs successfully hatched and fledged.  to our sadness but also, if i am to be honest, to my slightly abashed joy, one of the three eggs did not hatch. mama has long since abandoned the nest, and the world is poorer by one cardinal, and richer by one image of a beautiful  brown-mottled bluish egg.

cardinal egg

saint paul, minnesota