Thanks. I really loved writing about the birds in meadow. When we moved here it was a vast (invasive) grassland. We put up bird houses and started planting trees. In the ten years, we've watched the types of birds change. The tree swallows and bluebirds are more rare, but we've heard wood cocks, brown thrashers, cardinals, and the red wing blackbirds.

Of all the birds, the red wings are most territorial; they chatter over their domain (or parish as I think of it). And the connection between cardinal the bird and cardinal (the religious rank) connects with the mass and binds lightly with the cant (phraseology) of the red wings; but perhaps their's is a cant of the underworld.