Some weeks are really good for birding.

I’m going to start with a trivia question:

What are these two birds and what are they doing?

                               

I’ll explain after the fold, but first, a quick note: these are all smaller versions of the images.  Clicking on them will get you to larger versions with more detail, location of shot, etc.  All these were taken in Southern VT or NH, not far from the Connecticut River.   Many were taken at Herrick’s Cove, one of my favorite birding spots.

The bird on the left is a chestnut-sided warbler:

                               


                               


                               

It may look in the picture above like they’re in an argument of some sort.  

That’s not quite right.

The previous week, I got a very poor photo of one of these guys, seeming to argue with a much bigger bird.  At first, I’d thought the bigger bird was feeding it, but when I realized the smaller was a chestnut-sided warbler, I thought, “no.  That doesn’t make any sense.”  So I dismissed it.  

Then, days later, I saw this scene:

                               


                               

So what’s going on here?  Why is such a small bird feeding such a big bird?  Did a Chestnut-sided warbler adopt a much larger bird?  

Not exactly.

The other bird is an immature Brown-Headed Cowbird (the adults look like this).  Cowbirds are predatory nesters.  They don’t create their on nests, but put their eggs in the nests of other birds and some of those other birds will feed the baby cowbirds along with their own young.  Not all birds fall for this,  but many do.  Per wikipedia:

It seems that Brown-headed Cowbirds periodically check on their eggs and young after they have deposited them. Removal of the parasitic egg may trigger a retaliatory reaction termed “mafia behavior”. According to a study by the Florida Museum of Natural History published in 1983, the cowbird returned to ransack the nests of a range of host species in 56% of the time when their egg was removed. In addition, the cowbird also destroyed nests in a type of “farming behavior” to force the hosts to build new ones. The cowbirds then laid their eggs in the new nests 85% of the time.

Now, I knew that cowbirds were predatory nesters, but it had just never occurred to me that they did so with much smaller birds.  I had always figured they’d use robins or grackle nests, picking a host that’s of similar size and diet.  But they seem to be indiscriminate.  They’ll even put their eggs in nests of birds that won’t feed them what they need to survive (house finches are an example of this).

So, live and learn.  

Even without that fascinating scene, it was a pretty damned good week for birding.  In our yard, I accidentally found a pair of American Redstarts, with the mamma yelling at me when I was near the baby (I didn’t stay long):

                               


                               


                               

I also found this immature Baltimore Oriole

                               

Several good looks at Black and White warblers

                               


                               


                               


                               


                               

A few Common Yellowthroats

                               


                               


                               

An Eastern Kingbird, feeding its young:

                               


                               


                               

One of the best looks I’ve ever had at a Great Crested Flycatcher

                               

Several gorgeous looks at an Indigo Bunting

                               


                               


                               

This Mystery Dragonfly

                               

A Mystery sparrow (or Wren)

                               

A pair of Yellow Bellied Sapsuckers

                               


                               

A Yellow Warbler (part of a whole family of them)

                               

All in all, a pretty good week or so.  As birders, we often focus on the rare and unusual birds.  I get that, but I don’t have a single photo here of a bird I think of as “rare.”  Every one of these birds (except for the great crested flycatcher) has shown up in my yard at one point or another.  But I still think it’s one of the best weeks of birding I’ve had in some time, because the common birds were pretty fascinating.

As usual, feel free to treat this as an open birds & birding thread and post your own photos if you like.