Mama chipping sparrow and cowbird baby

I was surprised to see this cowbird baby and its chipping sparrow mama since I had seen very few cowbirds this spring and summer. In years past I've seen cowbirds raised by other sparrow varieties, and even cardinals. But these two are so off in size, it's comical. 

Injured Cowbird?

We noticed this female cowbird in the backyard, hobbling along with a possible injury on her right wing. While watching her, a male cowbird came up and did a little dance for her, and at one point she had a male and female sparrow on either side of her like they were all friends. I have no idea what was going on with this and I eventually lost sight of her.

Cowbirds at it again!

Just like last year, the cowbirds are after the robins again.

A Blackbird Consortium

There are at least 21 birds in this posse and they've been swarming the feeder all day long, moving as one organism as they descend on the yard or get spooked away by a passing vehicle. Most of them are grackles, with a few cowbirds throw in the mix, and about a half dozen red-winged blackbirds. All these different varieties of one type of bird.

Who says we can't all get along?

Weekend Update

• I'm thrilled to report that the Indigo Bunting returned twice today after gracing me with his presence for the first time yesterday.

• Wrens, wrens everywhere! They have been hanging out in our garden areas so there must be a nest somewhere nearby. I received many baleful scoldings from them as I got too close in my attempts to photograph them. 

• Lately I've been really lazy about filling the hummingbird feeder. A wave of guilt washes over me whenever I look at it, and the hummingbirds haven't returned (from what I've seen). But yesterday there were two sweet little butterflies resting on its red plastic base so I felt better knowing someone was getting something from it. Speaking of butterflies, they're everywhere! It's fun to watch them.

• A cowbird with a most embarrassing situation visited our feeder yesterday. As it turns out, humans aren't the only ones who must watch for bird poo bombs from above. Yes, that's what the streak of white is on his back. Hopefully it was an accident and not a malicious attack, but when you've got a reputation like the cowbird, you never know...

The Notorious Brown-Headed Cowbirds

We found this egg carefully placed on the edge of the garden box. It's too far from any nest or tree for it to simply fall out and land just so. I suspect that a cowbird may be behind this one.

We've found abandoned broken eggs in our yard before. A few weeks ago Rob watched a brown-headed cowbird fly from the pine tree out back and drop a robin's egg just inches from our deck. Cowbirds are known as "brood parasites" that search out other bird's nests to lay their eggs in. They even go so far as to find nests with speckled eggs (to match their own so the host won't recognize them as foreign), and they essentially stake out these nests waiting for the hosts to leave before laying their own egg. Usually they will remove one or more of the host's eggs, perhaps so that bird won't notice that there's more eggs than she laid herself. I don't know if birds can count or have a sense for how many eggs they're incubating but it's some fascinating stuff!

The host bird raises these cowbird babies as their own. Last summer I saw evidence of this foster-parenting when a male cardinal was feeding a young cowbird. What really intrigues me is that these cowbirds are not raised by their kind, so how do they all know to do this when they mature? It must all be hard-wired into their little birds brains. It's simply amazing!

Sunday's Birdservations!

It's amazing what you can see when you're really looking. Today I observed several things worth mentioning. Unfortunately the camera didn't catch all of this and even if it did, the image quality isn't awesome. So here we are:

• The hummingbird feeder I hung in the tree was finally noticed by one teensy weensy ruby-throated hummingbird

• A brown-headed cowbird danced for a female

• A male house sparrow gave himself a dirt bath in the neighbors' garden plot

• It was girls night out as a group of female house finches fought over whose turn it was at the feeder

• In search of some protein, a sparrow chased a hapless moth and presumably ate it (I lost sight of them before the meal happened)

• A house finch happily splashed around in the water tray

Dancing Cowbird

A brown-headed cowbird, dancing for the female. She was unimpressed.

6:57 AM

If you ask the neighbors what the heck I was doing crouched behind barberry shrub this morning at 7 AM they wouldn't know what to tell you. I wasn't planning to take a picture of this groggy cowbird, but she was so uncharacteristically quiet and sweet.