Baby Cardinal Food

We learned today that although Cardinals themselves eat mostly seeds, their babies like bugs best. We got pictures of a cicada, beetles, a centipede, and a cricket from this site. I pasted them into Word and printed them all out on a single page for coloring. We also did the cardinal coloring/narration page from the Cornell birds packet (page 30). And, best of all, our cardinal pair came back to our feeder today. It's been quite some time since they visited us!

And we watched a few clips because I'm a big wuss about bugs and have *zero* desire to go find the critters in person. Flipping through our Eyewitness: Insects book sort of stresses me out. All those big beautiful illustrations. Pictures of bugs.

eww...

Crickets:


Cicada:
This one's cool: the bug sounds like a wind-up toy!


Did you know that cicadas suck on trees? Then they squirt. Frequently. Cool, in a repulsive sort of way.


Centipede:
I couldn't find anything on your average garden centipede, but check this out! That thing's a foot long! I'm guessing that cardinals don't eat this type of bug.


And here's a few on Cardinals, just to keep that last one from giving anyone nightmares!