Feed me feed me!

Monday
Roger was out for a few shopping errands this morning, and I had a visit to the library to pick up the book for next month’s Book Club, Nomadland by Jessica Bruner. It was only available in Large print edition, and from Loveland Branch Library, not one of my usual ones, but it’s not much further. They had a quilt display, with numerous small/medium quilts hanging above the shelves. They were numbered, and I noticed as I Ieft there was a big bowl with pieces of paper in, so I guess you could vote for your favourite. I didn’t want to hang around any longer so I didn’t bother finding out any more. I did take a couple of photos though in case I wanted to use them for a blip. However, when we went walking at Rowe Wooods, I got a better picture, and it turned out to be a more interesting picture. We had been standing on a boardwalk by one of the ponds, looking at turtles and frogs, and I turned to continue, and saw the right hand little bird sitting on the railing with his mouth wide open and chirping loudly, clearly a juvenile. Then the other bird flew in - mother and young you would think, except the young seemed almost bigger than the adult. I didn’t know what the birds were, so when we got back I had to do some research. The young one appeared to be a juvenile Brown headed cowbird, but my apps didn’t seem sure about the other, though one said it was an Eastern Phoebe. Further research revealed that the female cowbird doesn’t build its own nest, but chooses to lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, abandoning their young to foster parents, usually at the expense of at least some of the host’s own chicks. So to confirm my suspicions, I posted the picture on Cincinnati Birders Facebook page, with a request for ID, and someone kindly replied that it was an adult Eastern Phoebe, which I hadn’t knowingly seen before, “feeding” a juvenile Brown headed cowbird! I put feeding in quotes, since despite the young one’s constant chirping and wide open mouth, I didn’t actually witness any feeding occurring. I’ve put a couple of other shots in extras. The male cowbird is a stocky kind of blackbird, with a glossy black coat, but a subtle brown head. I also identified a tree with white blossom, I’ve been seeing around a lot recently, Black locust it turns out, and a white flowering bush which was new to me, as well as seeing the usual turtles and a few frogs. So a good informative walk!