An old expression that Joe and I say to each other, often. It always brings a laugh. We remember our Grandma's saying this years ago.
Here's the reason for the expression...
I'm in the kitchen making stuffed peppers for dinner. I'm standing at the counter, facing the patio doors, when I spot a male Cardinal on the feeder. He is feeding one of his young ( I thought.) The baby was so sweet....bending way down and begging to be fed over and over. I call Joe to watch and it's something that I haven't seen before. Wouldn't you know it...my camera batteries are charging for our trip this weekend. Not wanting to scare the birds away, I make my way over to the table and sit and watch for a long time. Sitting like a statue... not wanting to turn the pages of the newspaper lying there. Pretty soon our resident Cowbird lands on the feeder, along with his mate. Then the female Cardinal comes. Four birds were sitting together and eating. They all were taking care of this baby. I know that Cowbirds are known for laying their eggs in another bird's nest....and then the other birds take care of their young, but today, I found that wasn't always the case. Do you suppose that the Cardinals hatched the egg and now both sets of parents are looking out for this little one? I'm wondering if this is the only baby. Oh, how spoiled he will be :)
Balisha
4 comments:
How sweet! I guess the parenting urge is too strong and have to feed the cardinal baby even tho its not theirs. Cant say as I have seen this but it may happen a lot.
Happy 4th of July!!
I have read that the cardinal babies from last year hang around the next year and help raise the new babies. Could that be what is happening?
I've been searching the web for info on this and found that cardinals raise cowbirds, not knowing it is not their egg that they are hatching. The cowbird lays it's egg in the nest of another and sometimes the baby is bigger than the bird's own eggs and it survives because it gets more food. What is unusual about what I saw was that the baby was being fed by both the cardinal and the cowbird.
Oh, now I understand. It is not a baby cardinal. You are probably seeing something happening that few people have ever noticed. Interesting that the parent cardinals would allow the adult cowbirds, but I guess as long as they feed it, all the help is welcome. Isn't Nature interesting!
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