Bad Crime Scene Photos from the Backyard Bird Feeder

It’s a dark scenario when an adoring Daddy has been working morning, noon, and night to feed the child of the killer who kicked his own young out of the nest while they were still only a tiny egg.

I switched to a high-octane no-melt peanut-flavored suet cake this year — and the suet feeder has been hopping. The most frequent guests at the banquet are the intended ones — mostly Red-bellied Woodpeckers and a truly astonishing number of their fledglings, but the Downy Woodpecker male finally persuaded the wife and kiddies to visit the feeder too.

Red-headed Woodpecker and Yellow-shafted Northern Flicker hang around the yard but are not as common at the feeder. Other regulars include Carolina Chickadee, Carolina Wren, and Northern Mockingbirds — especially one Northern Mockingbird with an aberrant white tail feather.

Brown Thrashers prefer to roam around on the floor underfoot to catch what the Red-bellies drop. Clinging is not their thing.

About a week ago, I noticed something new on the feeder — a small yellow bird with a large gray tag-a-long.

Uh-oh.

Brown-headed Cowbirds are brood parasites. They do not raise their own young. (As far as I know, they cannot raise their own young.) The mother Cowbird lays her eggs in the nest of other, usually smaller, species like warblers.

Because she’s all sneaky like that, she first kicks out one (or sometimes more) of the eggs before replacing it with her own egg.

That might explain why I found this egg just sitting on bare concrete while I was pacing anxiously behind the surgery center the other day. However, after looking over a few bird egg photos, I developed a second theory. Could this be a Brown-headed Cowbird egg that got quietly dumped off when a likely host nest wasn’t found in time?

Pine Warblers are fast and restless, and I am slow. Plus, in recent months, I’ve also been very busy. Thus, I didn’t think I’d be able to grab a photo for you guys.

However, this morning before coffee, I was lucky enough to notice that a parent had brought in the youngster for an extended feed. Maybe, by this point, it’s the nagging baby who brought in the parent.

Either way, I did manage to grab a few photos with my Nikon Coolpix P610. It would have been better if the duo had arrived after coffee, though. I might have noticed I was shooting ISO 800 when 100 or 200 would have done just as well on this bright morning.

But you get the idea.

This fledgling knows perfectly well where the food lives but still prefers to have it delivered. A lot of the woodpecker fledglings are the same way. They hang out on a nearby tree and wait for the parents to fly in with the latest delivery.

You’d think the warblers would catch on after a while because of the tremendous size difference. But they haven’t yet.

Logic tells us that a Brown-headed Cowbird raised by Pine Warblers might be at risk of developing Pine Warbler values and behaviors. Apparently, that’s exactly what does happen in captivity.

However, in the wild, the Cowbirds have an instinct to sneak out and find the bad crowd — that is, the local Cowbird hangout — so they can learn the ways of their own people.

"Don’t be a sap. Hard work is for fools and warblers. We are the cool kids. Come join the party."

I made up that dialogue but I didn’t make up the behavior. Science said it, not me:

“Like human teenagers, young cowbirds sneak out at night — though unlike human teenagers, these chicks’ evening rendezvous seem to be with members of their own family.” — How Does a Cowbird Learn to be a Cowbird? by Matt Soniak, Audubon, Feb. 25, 2016

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Q. Well, Amethyst, why don’t you take the suet feeder down if it’s feeding a criminal cowbird?

A. Because it’s also feeding young woodpeckers and other baby birds from at least three surrounding neighborhoods.

Have a couple of quick shots of Downy and Red-bellied Woodpeckers to remind you what it’s really all about.

The Downy Woodpecker collage is made from three different photos. The image on the left shows the male. He did most of the food fetching. The center and right photos show one of the fledglings that he taught to check the feeder.

So, so many fledgling Red-bellied Woodpeckers would wait on this tree for their parents to feed them. Unlike the Downy situation, both male and female adult Red-bellies spent a lot of time fetching and carrying from the feeder.

That reminds me to mention that not everybody falls for the Cowbird’s “I’m little and cute” act. The warbler flies away from the suet feeder while the rambunctious Red-Bellies are there.

However, on the morning I took these photos, the baby Cowbird didn't immediately fly away with its parent. Instead, it stuck around and tried to beg for food from the female Red-Belly.

She gave the Cowbird some serious stink-eye but not one bite of food. A few moments later, she went to the tree to deliver to one of her own young as usual.

Photo Note

I took all of these photos with my Nikon Coolpix P610, except for the egg photo, which I snagged with my Samsung Galaxy 8. All rights reserved.

Author's Note

This story was originally published on June 4, 2023, in Gardening, Birding, and Outdoor Adventure, a Medium publication. If you enjoy seeing these pictures and stories without a paywall, please drop a <3 or a comment to let me know. Thanks.