I only thought I knew what they were doing

 Yesterday's note was about the difficulty in making general statements about trees. Today, a note on animals.

Last spring, I saw two male cardinals, one pursuing the other, branch to branch, relentlessly. I saw them outbound on the walk up the creek. They were still at it, 10 minutes later, when we returned down the creek on the way back to the truck.

The quarrel seemed to be about one tree. I was ready to write about territorial behavior and started collecting material in my notebook. The next day when we passed the disputed tree, we saw two male cardinals, sitting calmly five feet apart.

Roy Bedichek, the wonderful Texas naturalist, didn’t understand birders who looked at birds only to identify them. Bedichek always asked: What is that particular bird doing?

When I look now, I ask. Most often, I just don’t know. What to say of those two cardinals? Perhaps they were engaged in relentless instinctual behavior but were required to take 10 minute breaks each hour. Something about union rules.