Our cardinals hang around all year. Okay, "our" cardinals are "Mr & Mrs C" who are the registered owners of the local franchise. They have young ones every year, who get to hang around for a few weeks before getting kicked out of the basement (or bird equivalent). The kids tend to be drama queens, Mr & Mrs C are too old for that stuff. Although Mr C will find a really nice seed in the feeder, hop over to Mrs C (or reach around the feeder corner) and feed it to her — not a mating ritual, they mate for life, male cardinals just do that.

Sure, others can see male (always male — why IS that?) cardinals as signs from heaven; to me, they're just a nice middle-aged couple who lives in our backyard, comfortably married and still in love.