The first clutch of baby eastern cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis) are all “grown up” and on their own while Momma and Poppa are working on the second group. For the most part, they look and act just like their parents except for the males having patchy colored plumage and both the males and the female still looking a bit scruffy. Every once in a while, though, they still do some babyish stuff. I caught Patch, here, racing around being silly in one of the oaks near the feeding station. He would race up and down the branch, then fluff himself up, and go to preening like nothing unusual had just happened. He repeated the set of behaviors several times for no particular reason that I could tell. Perhaps I’m being overly anthropomorphic, but I think he was playing. Whatever he was doing, I found it quite amusing to watch.