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Bird Poop Thread 1: About Bird Poop !

tigerswood said:
We have a mother robin that has made a nest and laid 4 eggs in our wreath by the front door. One of the eggs was broken on our porch the other day. I think this either due to our neighbor's cat, or the black snake I saw by the porch a couple days prior. Thoughts @birdman? Fortunately, the other three eggs remain, and are the cool classic shade of blue.
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Hard to say. It's highly unlikely that a cat or a snake would only take a single egg, drop it and leave the others. Cats would destroy the whole nest and snakes would very neatly and quietly eat them all. My guess would be a cowbird was interrupted trying to parasitize the nest. They show up, toss a host egg then lay their own, so if mama returns before the cowbird can squeeze out the egg you'd end up with a broken egg on the ground next to the nest and everything else looking normal.
 
One of my neighbors used to have a family of blue birds in their backyard bird house. Then they sent us this picture last weekend.

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birdman said:
Hard to say. It's highly unlikely that a cat or a snake would only take a single egg, drop it and leave the others. Cats would destroy the whole nest and snakes would very neatly and quietly eat them all. My guess would be a cowbird was interrupted trying to parasitize the nest. They show up, toss a host egg then lay their own, so if mama returns before the cowbird can squeeze out the egg you'd end up with a broken egg on the ground next to the nest and everything else looking normal.
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Yeah this makes sense. It was also odd that the sequence of the laying went: 2 eggs, then down to 1 after the 1 was broken, then 2 more less than 48 hours after. There might even be one more in there. Mama been gettin' busy.
 
Anyone know what this bird is? It showed up at the bird feeder today - I’ve never seen one like this before. Located in Denver

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trying to help this lil guy - his wing a lil fucked up
 
caught em an wrapped em and put him in a dark warm box

I have a pigeon friend coming over with a cage and feed
 
apparently this is a young morning dove who is molting

no structural damage to either wing apparent

may have just been tired? tried to get it to eat some seeds but wouldn't bite - tried to fly away on my screened in-porch instead

se reccomended (since it looks like he can get lift) to just return it to where I found it and check back in an hour
 
TenaciousKory said:
apparently this is a young morning dove who is molting

no structural damage to either wing apparent

may have just been tired? tried to get it to eat some seeds but wouldn't bite - tried to fly away on my screened in-porch instead

se reccomended (since it looks like he can get lift) to just return it to where I found it and check back in an hour
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This was a saga. What happened when you checked back?
 
Bird are such bad asses. A ~350 gram birds travels >2350 miles in a three day trip from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to San Francisco Bay.

 
what is best practice when you see a distressed bird in the wild?

think it was a cormorant by the lake, apparent wing damage or something -- didn't leave this one spot for hours
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
what is best practice when you see a distressed bird in the wild?

think it was a cormorant by the lake, apparent wing damage or something -- didn't leave this one spot for hours
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That is a tough call. It depends on the species. like a small bird is probably fine to intervene and help, but they are incredibly delicate, so you might end up making things worse. A large bird, like a cormorant can be surprisingly strong and might end up hurting you with clawed feet or a sharp bill. Probably best try to find a wildlife rehabber and see if they would come catch the animal. I saw a pelican recently with fish line wrapped around its leg and my kid really wanted me to try and catch it and free the leg. But those birds are actually dangerous and I had no gloves so I left it.

Also worth noting that most birds are protected under the migratory bird act and catching and mishandling them, even with good intentions, can get you into trouble.
 
[h=1]Female Hummingbirds Avoid Harassment by Looking Like Males[/h]
Among white-necked Jacobin hummingbirds, those with plumage that resembles colors found on males get harassed less.


https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/26/science/hummingbirds-female.html

An adult female white-necked Jacobin hummingbird is no stranger to invisible labor.
When she lays an egg, the male hummingbird who played an equal role in the conception of said egg is nowhere to be seen. It is only thanks to her hours of weaving that the egg has a nest at all. When her chick hatches, she alone will feed it regurgitated food from her long bill.

And then there is the constant harassment. As the muted-green females visit flowers to sip on nectar, they are chased, pecked at and body-slammed by aggressive males of their species, whose heads are a flamboyant blue.

But some female white-necked Jacobins, which are found from Mexico to Brazil, have a trick up their wing: Instead of garbing themselves in green plumage, they take on bright blue ornamentation and appear essentially identical to male hummingbirds. Scientists found these male look-alikes avoid harassment directed toward green females, according to a paper published Thursday in the journal Current Biology.
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A friend of mine is quoted in this interesting article.
 
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