Are You My Mother?

What happens when a female Robin loses her babies? The mothering instinct is strong. Here is a situation we heard about this morning via email, from Sharon Eiter, who lives near Hartford:

“There is a bird nest in a honeysuckle shrub on a trellis in our yard.  We have watched both a robin and male and female cardinal feeding the chicks in the nest. Is this common? We did not see the eggs prior to hatching so do not know yet what kind of chicks they are.  However, the beaks seem to be short and stubby like a cardinal, not long and thin like a robin.  We will keep looking at them to i.d. as they grow feathers.”

We forwarded the email to Milan Bull, our senior director of science and conservation, and asked him what he thought. Here’s what he said:

“It may be the case where the robin lost her young and responds to the cardinal chick’s cries for food. I’ve seen this a few times in the past. A mother can’t resist responding to the ‘feed me!’ cries of other babies.”

Photos by Dick Daniels, Carolinabirds.org.