Last friday, Art Hudak & were at Genesee Mountain Park (Jefferson County,) and we too saw a Dark-eyed Junco feeding a BHCO chick.
<https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-9iDhoAFBp-Q/V3GmYcDw1zI/AAAAAAAAAEw/DFy5XhzvaFUrfwxXNLX2WHX63x7r9NUlQCLcB/s1600/Gray-headed%2BJunco%2Bfeeding%2BBrown-headed%2BCowbird%2B2.jpg> Good birding! Tom Behnfield Lakewood, CO [email protected] On Monday, June 27, 2016 at 11:49:29 AM UTC-6, [email protected] wrote: > > Today while walking along my favorite part of the Mary Carter Greenway I > encounter an odd looking bird that I could not figure out. It was all brown > with fine streaks along the breast and belly but the bill was wrong for a > finch and it was too big. Then I noticed it was flapping around from branch > to branch frantically, and I noticed it was chasing a yellow warbler male > and constantly calling. I could not make sense of why this bird would be > chasing a warbler and calling like that. Finley both stopped on a Russian > olive branch and I was able to get a better view. I observed the warbler > glean an insect (likely a gnat) and take it lower down to the unknown bird > and stick it in the bird’s mouth. It finally came together then. This was a > recently fledged juvenile brown headed cowbird that the warbler believed to > be its offspring. It was certainly dwarfed by the cowbird. I have not seen > this in the wild before, I have one nature programs but that was it. > Interesting behavior to watch, not all that good for the warblers however. > Hopefully their population will not be to affected by this along the river. > This was at the mile marker 12, the dirt walking path goes through some > woods that is a favorite for warblers and other birds. Thought I would > share this. > > Brian Johnson > > Englewood CO > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/19426187-5e1e-40af-8a1e-10b8c6e4f8fa%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
