On Sunday, with a game originally scheduled for Wrigley Field, Mary Dueren would have watched the Cardinals.
Instead, Dueren spent Sunday watching the cardinals.
"I've got bird feeders, and right now I can look through my patio door and see a pair of cardinals that are fussing at each other," she said by phone from her home in unincorporated St. Louis County, near Maryland Heights. "This is a time of the year that they're finding their mates, they're pairing up, they're defending food sources."
The coronavirus pandemic has postponed the baseball season, but for those rare birds who enjoy both the St. Louis Cardinals and cardinals in St. Louis, there still is plenty of redbird action to see.
"We can't wait for the Birds on the Bat to return," said Robert Weaver, a local photographer and publisher of The Gateway Gardener. "But until then, the birds in the trees are putting on a pretty good show."
Of course, some Cardinals fans might find bird-watching boring. But then again, some people find watching four-hour Cardinals games boring, too. And while bird-watching isn't as intoxicating as watching the birds at Busch (or the Busch at Busch), some take solace in the serenity of spotting a particular flock. It's the natural pastime. And you really do feel a quick shock of energy when you see the resplendent red of a cardinal in plain sight.
"I bird watch year-round, I've bird-watched at 70 miles an hour, my husband will tell you that," said Dueren, who calls the cardinal her "Eureka bird," as in the bird that starts your passion. "Once you get hooked into it, you're bird-watching all the time, spring, summer, fall, winter. You can mark the seasons by which birds are coming and going ... . I think the most cardinals I saw this winter at one time was 14 at my backyard bird feeders ... .
"And I do watch the baseball Cardinals! I'm missing having the game on. It's comforting. We love going to games.
"You know," she said of the cardinals and Cardinals, "both are kind of high-flying treats to watch."
Dave Haenni has been watching Cardinals since he was a boy. The 63-year-old has early memories of seeing Stan Musial late in his career in '63. Haenni would watch the games with his dad. There was Tim McCarver. Ray Washburn. Ray Sadecki. As an adult, it wasn't until Haenni's 30s that he picked up bird-watching _ excuse me, birding. That's what they call it. He was out turkey hunting once and they "weren't really gobblin', and all of a sudden I was surrounded by these just beautiful, gorgeous birds."
They were warblers. Eureka! He was hooked. This year, already, Haenni has spotted 180 species of birds.
"But the pandemic is making it difficult," he explained, "because there are a lot of birds on the other side of the state that I'd like to go see right now. But I don't think that's a good idea."
When he birds these days, he's careful. He keeps social distance (from humans, too). Haenni himself can be spotted at Tower Grove Park or Forest Park _ he's the 6-foot-8 tree of a man looking into the trees. Or he'll visit conservation areas in Alton or one in St. Charles, sure enough, also named after Busch. As he would drive home from birding in the early weeks of March, "I was listening to a few spring training games until (that) season got canceled," he said. "That always makes you feel like spring is actually here when you hear some baseball from Florida."
While on the phone, a bird chirped in the background.
"That's a cardinal singing," he said. "Very appropriate ... . It's beautiful bird, but it's very common. They're very used to living in suburban or urban areas, so everybody gets to enjoy them. I see them every day in my yard. Sometimes if you see something all the time, you kind of get used to it, look past it."
In a way, the cardinal is like the Cardinals. Perhaps we take them for granted and only truly can appreciate their role in our life when they're suddenly not in our life.
Southwest of St. Louis is St. Robert, about two hours away. From her backyard, the biologist birder photographer named Mycha Ashlee Van Allen looks for cardinals. Her favorite image is in the winter, the red bird on white snow. She also likes listening to the cardinals _ her version of KMOX.
"When you're walking through the woods and they make that distinct sound, then you can say, 'Oh, that's a cardinal!' she said. "When you're actually listening for the birds and listening for those things, all your senses kind of just start igniting. And that's a different experience in itself."
From his home in Jefferson City, Eric Brown can see a bird feeder and a lake, as well as the Osage River. A cardinal regularly made an appearance. So did another bird, but "it was all different kinds of shades of like brown and green and rusty color," Brown said. "And I thought wow, I wonder what kind of bird this is? And then we watched this weird-colored bird go sit on the branch about a foot away from the cardinal, and I thought, oh, well at least they're friendly with each other. And then the male cardinal jumped up behind the other bird and they were fluttering together. So, um, that's when we figured out it was a husband and wife. I didn't think I'd ever see something like that."
Indeed, the female cardinal is multi-colored whereas the male cardinal is, you know, cardinal.
"He has a spectacular red color," Brown said. "We get sun on the side of the house most of the day. And the sun hits him and he's just glows."
Brown and his wife come to town at least once a year for a Cardinals game. Are there any similarities watching the birds and bird watching?
"They're both pretty small from where we're sitting," he said.
