Cardinal neighbors

 One of the features of my new apartment, which is on the ground floor, is that the back door gives out on a garden with a couple of trees and some benches. I have not been using it this summer because of the heat and because the vegetation is overgrown and harbors mosquitos, but I expect that will change as the weather eventually cools down. Some of my bird neighbors are a family of cardinals. I heard a thumping noise coming from the kitchen and saw that a bird was bashing into the window. I was worried that it was not seeing the glass but when I approached, it flew away. There are bars on the window so it seemed odd that a bird would fly into it. A few days later it happened again. The bird was knocking on my window! I realized it was a female cardinal. A while later I met my landlord for the first time when he came down to mow some of the tall grass. I told him about the bird knocking and he said that this is because one of the tenants used to feed them, and that he himself gives them a nut every morning. I put some granola out and it got eaten but it didn't seem attractive to the cardinal pair. I had better luck with sunflower seeds--I threw a handful out and got to see the pair come down and eat them. I also saw a neighborhood cat try to sneak up on them. Apparently the back yard fence is referred to as the cat superhighway. I haven't heard the birds knocking on the window again but I also don't give them sunflower seeds every day. I did see that a juvenile was with them begging to be fed. I just put out some more seeds and heard their distinctive food chirps. Sure enough, the dad cardinal and one of the babies were out there eating, and the baby was being super-annoying and begging even though it was perfectly capable of eating the seeds off the ground. I"m glad to have cardinals as neighbors here because there were always cardinals near my home in Minnesota and I missed them in Berkeley.