On March 14, 2014 at the Venice, Florida rookery, I took this series of photos of an adult egret feeding its young. ; After a considerable effort, the parent bird barfed up a hotdog!! ; The larger of the two young quickly swallowed it whole, leaving the smaller one with nothing. ; There are frequently Audubon docents at this site. One of them told me that the people in the adjacent trailer park feed the birds hotdogs. ; I returned today (March 22, 2014). ; The larger of the two offspring is bigger and the smaller one is no longer in the nest. ; I was rather amazed to see that hotdog come rocketing out of the adults mouth. ; I am not too surprised that people are feeding the birds hotdogs as the last time that I was at Gatorland in Orlando, I saw families entering the park with whole packages of hotdogs and the birds and gators quickly gobbling them up.
Oooohhh...hot dogs are probably not great for the little guy. ; Heck, they are not great for us! ; ;D
I do wonder just how good hot dogs are for the birds...but cool series anyway! ; Our birds are in the same phase now - lots of chicks in the nests, growing larger - great blue herons, tricolor herons, great egrets, snowy egrets, anhingas, cormorants, wood storks, green herons - all the nests are busy. ; Haven't seen one get a hot dog though - around here, they seem to stick to natural foods, so mostly fish. I've often seen that where one chick becomes the dominant force, grabbing all the food and leaving the others runty and small - often the smaller one dies, and is then consumed itself...nature can be a little cruel, but it's all about survival! This past weekend, I was out photographing the egrets, and one particular nest with 2 chicks where mom was out looking for food had a male egret come to the nest, kill the two chicks, and take the nest - when mom returned, he first tried to attract her with his mating display, then she got ornery and they fought a bit, until she got chased off. ; Now it's his nest, and he's busy trying to tempt a female to come to him - with his big display and a nest for her to use. ; It's funny - so many tourists come to see the 'pretty birds' and think they're so lovely, until they see or hear a story like that...then the birds start to look more like vicious dinosaurs to them!
Justin, you are right. ; Nature can be cruel. ; I have had mallard ducks nest many times in my yard in Michigan. ; I have yet to see a chick survive. ; Mostly racoons are to blame. ; I have seen Canadian geese ; be successful in my yard on one occasion. ; Maybe they concealed their nest better or ,being larger birds, were able to discourage the racoons from getting near the nest. I have had a Canadian goose lower its head and neck and charge me on more than one occasion.
