Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Brown Thrashers



I'm so frustrated with internet searches. There's the same inane information over and over and I can't find out anything that passes any of my bullshit filters! Sand grouse, whatever, do REGULAR SONGBIRDS drink water in the nest from their parents' feathers? Just the ones the eat seeds instead of juicy protein-filled insects? Why isn't there a chart or something that says what birds feed their babies? I guess if I want to know I have to have enough money for a big house and books. What I did find is the first page of a paper on Jstor that says it's not uncommon for birds to take water to their babies in their feathers. It also says people used to think birds carried water to their babies in their crop, but that turned out to be false. Of course it still says that on Wikipedia.

So what do you think? When this wet brown thrasher goes back to the nest will the babies drink some of the water? I wish I had some kind of web cam I could train on these things. I took the pictures of the inside of the nest by holding my phone out at arms length pointing down just to find out what was in the nest. I'd seen a cowbird at the birdbathtub and wanted to be see if it was only brown thrasher eggs. The nest isn't really where I can observe what's happening without disturbing them. Maybe if I climbed the wax myrtle tree with the binoculars.

Link to pictures if you aren't running flash
BrownThrasherBathnBabies

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