FreeLists / va-bird / [va-bird] Bad Baby, Very Bad!

[canyon.eagle@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Howdy VAbirders,

Just a quick aside, in response to Bart's plea for people to lighten up and 
be more welcoming to new folks, especially those who are as good-natured as 
Richard Roberts seems to be......Right on Bart, way to go!  And welcome to 
Richard!

Now, back to the subject of babies.  On Monday I reported that we saw our 
first Pileated youngster of the 2003 season.  What a happy day!

OTOH, this morning I saw something that shocked the heck out of me.  First, 
let me back up a bit.  Yesterday I heard a peculiar begging cry, one that I 
didn't recognize.  We have quite a few nesting birds around here and over 
the years I've come to learn many of their begging sounds.  Yesterday's was 
a mystery.  The cry reminded me of the sound a male hum makes when he 
displays, or "U's" except that it kept going on and on and on.  I tracked 
it down and found 2 fledgling birds sitting in our "monster" bush, a 
beastly Asian honeysuckle that is slated for removal.  Getting a good view 
through the branches was tough but I was able to ascertain that 1) I didn't 
know what they were and 2) one of them looked sickly.  I've seen quite a 
few fledgling birds, yet I couldn't id these two.

Now to this morning, I saw a bird hopping around on the ground and decided 
it looked somewhat like a female Cowbird, but not quite.  All of a sudden 
it hopped quickly towards "our" Song Sparrow and to my shock, our Song 
Sparrow fed the "Cowbird."  Reality hit me and my shock turned to dismay, 
and then to repulsion.  OUR Song Sparrows had been robbed of their children 
and used in the most low-down way.  Mr. Song Sparrow, who even in the cold 
cold days of the frigid winter, sat on the trellis outside my kitchen 
window and sang his little heart out and cheered me through those long, 
dreary days.  Mrs. Song Sparrow, who used precious life energy to lay her 
eggs, was now being forced to raise a pair of hoggy intruders.  The thought 
of it infuriates me no end!

Reading of Cowbird parasitism never prepared me for the anger I feel now 
that I have witnessed it.

Lori Markoff
Vienna
Fairfax County
canyon.eagle@xxxxxxxxxxx 

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