Baby Cardinals

Maybe it's because my small-town high school's team name was the Cardinals, but this week I've been enchanted by the tweets of nicolibrian, an Iowa City library graduate student.

She recently discovered a couple of cardinals had built a nest outside her window, and now the babies have arrived. Some of her birdy tweets:

The Cardinal eggs have hatched!! Both Cardinal parents are feeding 3 chicks, Mom still sitting on them most of the time. Overcome by cute.

Newly-hatched Cardinal update: they sleep. And eat bugs. Both Mom and Dad feeding them creepy crawlies. Have very fine gray fuzz already!

Mommy Cardinal does this funny thing where she jumps in the nest and wiggles on the babies. I am dying of cute.

And she posted a link to this video, saying "Our Cardinal nest is not this close, but this is exactly what they look like!"



But am I the only one who -- noticing how their huge mouths hide the fact that the hungry little birds even have heads -- is reminded of a slightly larger hungry beast from Frank Herbert's Dune?