The Cardinal Rule

I was watching a young cardinal, hopping around the lawn amongst other birds, feeding on seed that the squirrels had knocked out of the feeder. It was having no difficulty finding and consuming food. A male cardinal joined in, landing nearby. The young bird then began to approach the adult, fluttering its wings and begging. What followed was this aggressive behavior from the male, captured in this sequence below, that I had never witnessed before.

The male jumped onto the back of the immature bird, pushing it deeper into the grass, until it decided to get off and let it go! No harm done, just a bruised ego and lesson learnt. I guess that the cardinal rule is, “Once you are old enough, quit begging, you are now on your own.”