Feeder Antics

As posted below, we enjoy watching our eastern bluebirds convey meal worms from our deck to nestlings and then in due course to dappled fledglings hiding in nearby foliage. Each time M puts a handful of the squirmy worms into the small blue feeding dish she gives a particular whistle that the parent bluebirds recognize as a dinner bell. Within a few moments of the whistle, usually the mommy bluebird arrives and, after tasting a few, crams her beak with worms for transport to her camouflaged chicks.
This year other birds have learned about M's whistle, with mixed results for the bluebirds, who weigh a bit less than the cardinals and catbirds now attentive to the dinner signal. Indeed, the catbird scoots in under the bluebird's very nose and resists our efforts to discourage its opportunism. And when the dish goes dry, the catbird will complain, loudly.
The cardinals are very timid, the male almost neurotically so, and they don't eat the meal worms, just the corn meal that the worms are packed in. Together or separately each cardinal will swoop in, push away the worms to scoop up beak fulls of meal, and then hurry away to their chicks in the nearby bushes.