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Mon 14 Jun, 2004 02:35 pm
Edit: Moderator: Moved from Reference to Wilderness/Wildlife/Ecology
Hi, I just wanted to know about a nest of cardinals that I have found in my back yard. I wanted to know why the mother bird would push them out of the nest if it was her. I have been monitoring the nest for about 2weeks going from building it to the eggs hatching and I went outside this after noon and took a peak only to find the nest empty. After looking around for a few seconds I found the babies on the ground underneath the nest. I am not sure how they got there and now I am worried because I had to touch them to put them back in the nest. Help. What should I do? Will they survive? Will the mother or father bird come back and take care of them?
Thanks, Lisa
Tell me this. Do the parent birds wait until no one is around to push the babies out? Last Friday evening, in one of the birdhouses out back, we had a family of babies. They'd been there for a few weeks and had grown to the point of reaching out for the food instead of the mom or dad actually bringing it into the house. I'm outdoors most afternoons and evenings and had watched them from the moment the babies were hatched and started chirping. But by the time I got out there Saturday afternoon, the house was empty! The babies were gone, the parents were gone. I thought surely I'd get to see the big event but alas, I missed it! Is that the way it's planned? When no one is around?
Sometimes a foster parent breaks loose from the magnetic attraction of the bright-orange baby-bird beak and kicks the cowbird kid out.
Much more often, the cowbird kid (who has a bigger and more enchanting yellow beak than the natural hatchlings) kicks his foster siblings out before they are ready. Cowbirds in infancy are not big on sharing.
Adult cowbirds share only unilaterally.
I would contact a social service agency and explain to them what's going on. Tell them of the parents mistreatment. It could be the mother was tossed out of her nest as an infant and this has left emotional scars. Child abuse and abandonment shouldn't happen to a bird!
Nickfun--
Every Cowbird is born an orphan--by parental choice.
Correct Noddy but the Cowbird lays its eggs in the nest of a bird of a different species and that other species raises the bird to adulthood. Thus, though orphaned, they are adopted.
NickFun--
They are fostered, but genetics will out!
flying the nest
I have had chestnut-backed chickadees nest in a birdhouse for two years. I actually got to see the fledglings leave the nest this year. I happened to be home, and watching. And once they were gone, they did not return to the nest, although the family still hangs around and eats from my feeders.
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