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Junco Adopts another bird? (1 Viewer)

brenchin

Member
Ok, I'm a novice bird watcher, but I keep my eye on the common behaviors of what's at and around my feeders. These last couple of days I have see a Junco feeding another bird, but the other bird is NOT a Junco. It looks like some kind of sparrow, and is bigger than the Junco. It sasses at the Junco, making a chirping kind of noise, and follows the Junco around. The Junco picks up seeds and puts them in the mouth of the big bird. I've also seen the Junco take seeds in its mouth and fly up to a nearby tree and hear the same exchange going on.

Have any of you ever seen anything like this? I wish I could get a photo or video of it. If I can I will.

Thanks in advance...
 
The fledgling is a Brown-headed Cowbird. Cowbirds are parasites which don't bring up their own young but sneak their eggs into the nests of other species to be raised by their victims. It's not uncommon for the adults of the host species to be noticeably smaller than the young cowbirds as in the case of your junco
 
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Fugl is probably right, but make sure you have a look at pictures of fledgling juncos (for example, this thread) also - since they look nothing like the parents. Also newly fledged birds do often look a little bigger than parents I think because they are fluffier.... or maybe it looks like this scene which is a cowbird and junco.
 
Thanks for the information. Yes, I looked for pics of juvenile cowbirds and they look very similar to what's in my back yard. While I googled as best I could before posting to the forum I found nothing referring to this phenomenon. After googling images of cowbirds I found this: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...+cowbird+juvenile&hl=en&sa=G&gbv=2&tbs=isch:1 This is very similar to what I'm seeing.
Learn something new every day! Thanks Fugl and Gretchen!
 
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