We found these chicks lying on the forest floor when we went to our mountain trip to West Virginia. This is also when I saw my first Golden crowned kinglet in the forest. We found these chicks this way…
We were exploring the pine forest when I saw a ton of adult phoebes sitting on the bushes. So I decided to make a Phoebe National Park. Then Zoe called me and said, “come here, faster!!!” So I ran over and I saw the cutest thing in my life: A very cute chick! I then walked around and found 2 more in between roots of a tree and on a rock!
We then had nothing to do but to help them, because we knew that an Eastern diamondback rattle snake lived in the rocks nearby. So we found a plastic platform, collected pine needles, I shaped them into a nest, we put the platform on a tree and I climbed the tree and put in the chicks. We went inside our house and waited. I took my special long distance bird photographing equipment and waited for about 40 minutes. Then, I saw something extraordinary: their mother flew to them with a caterpillar in her beak, and then she fed them one by one. She ran out of food, and brought back an ant this time.
Eastern phoebe birds are medium sized flycatchers living throughout North America. These birds are capable of acrobatic flights which they sometimes use to catch dragonflies. When flies are scarce, they feed on ants and caterpillars. There are color variations of this bird, the Western morph being grey-brown with a white face patch and brown cap. The Northern form is dull grey-black with white bellies. They can also hover.
At the end of the day, we taught everyone that came with us about the chicks, and ended the day by eating a big dinner and then I read about endangered animals and plants, and I learned about a species I never knew before: A flat spire three tooth land snail, the rarest snail in the state of West Virginia (it only lives in one county).
During that trip, I also had more insane luck of finding the Kentucky flat millipede (Apheloria virginiensis) and fossils above a tunnel. (Blog coming soon.)
*A fledgling bird is a bird that just learned to fly or learned very recently.
Птенцам повезло, что они попались вам, а не гремучей змее. Вы их спасли. Это было очень правильно и ответственно. Молодцы!
Да, здорово, что мать нашла птенцов в новом гнезде! Теперь, наверное, они уже выросли и летают самостоятельно. Может, иногда, вспоминают вас с Зоей! :))
Ну вы молодцы с Зоей! Помогли птенцам, очень правильное решение… может когда вернетесь обратно туда, то они уже вырастут и вы их встретите снова.. 🙂
Adorable