National Geographic Moment

I was talking to a reporter about the new arrivals and noticed that a baby Cardinal had fallen out of the tree and onto Mary Ann the bobcat’s jungle gym perch. The mother and father Cardinals were working desperately to lure Mary Ann away from the baby, so it could hop down to the ground outside her cage, but the baby was confused.

The baby wanted to watch the show from his perch on Mary Ann’s platform. Mary Ann was so intrigued with these crazy Cardinals, who were just taunting her in the opposite direction, that she never did notice the fledgling. She would pounce at one parent bird and the other would launch in to distract her away. She isn’t much of a hunter, it seems.

Naturally, I didn’t want to approach the baby bird, for fear of scaring it right down into the fray. The whole time the reporter is talking about her cats at home and is totally oblivious of what was unfolding in front of her. I didn’t point it out to her because I really didn’t want to see a baby Cardinal being snarfed down by a bobcat on the 6 o’clock news tonight. “Live, from Big Cat Rescue…” No, no, no.

In the end the baby ended up outside the cage and was being called by his parents away from the dangers of landing in bobcat cages.