Young cardinals are brown but will molt into red feathers

Q: I watched a beautiful male cardinal feeding an all-brown bird on the roof of my garage. Why would it feed another species?

A: That’s a great observation and it indicates how different young cardinals look from their parents. That all-brown bird was doubtless a young cardinal that had recently left the nest but still needed to be fed by a parent. For several months, young cardinals are a warm brown color, with little hint of the beautiful red birds they’ll become. Beaks will turn bright red in a few weeks, and youngsters will molt into cardinal-red feathers before winter. As for the male feeding his offspring, male cardinals take over feeding the young that fledge from their first nest while females take care of a second brood in a second nest, a double-nesting strategy that leads to more cardinals joining the world each year.

Q: We have a birdbath next to the house and blackbirds deposit poop in it several times a day. Is this common and is there any way to discourage this disgusting practice?

A: Yes, it’s quite common for birds to deposit things we regard as disgusting in birdbaths, and there isn’t much that can be done to stop them. It sounds like the birds messing up your birdbath are removing their nestlings’ fecal sacs from the nest and disposing of these in the birdbath water. The good news is that this should cease soon as the young birds mature. You’re lucky not to have crows nesting nearby, because they can leave all kinds of revolting things in the birdbath, from pieces of young rabbit to chunks of carrion they’ve found in the road. After young birds fledge, birdbaths usually return to their former state of cleanliness.

Q: Recently a large flock of geese in a V formation flew high over my head. They seemed to be heading north, and were honking loudly. This struck me as odd, since it was late May and migration ended months ago — many local geese already had goslings. What was going on, do you know?

A: I received several inquiries from readers about similar sightings, most mentioning a large flock of Canada geese flying northward on May 26. I was out bird-watching that morning and saw the same thing, a noisy flock of at least 150 flying geese, and others as far north as Duluth reported the same sight. This is a puzzle since, as you noted, migration ended weeks earlier. I asked Nate Huck, a migratory game bird expert with the Minnesota DNR, if this was an example of “molt migration,” when waterfowl head north to safe lakes to spend several weeks while they molt new flight feathers.

“It definitely was molt migration,” Huck said. “Geese were streaming through on their way to shallow lakes in the north, where they’ll graze for a week or two.” Similar flocks were observed flying overhead over the next week or so. After a rest, Huck says, the geese fly even farther north, as far as the shores of Hudson’s Bay to take advantage of long days for foraging and plenty of food sources. There, they’ll drop all their flight feathers at once, rendering them unable to fly, making them vulnerable to predators, so they need a nearby body of water to escape to. Huck says the geese will remain in Canada until sometime in September, when they’ll migrate back to our area, returning in flocks.

Here’s the most fascinating aspect, to me: Huck says these flocks of molt migrators are generally made up of birds too young to breed or that failed in their attempts to attract a mate. “It makes evolutionary sense for these geese to vacate local habitats so as not to drain it of resources that are needed by breeding birds” and later, their offspring, he added.

Q: Some years ago on a winter day I observed an amazing bird display in the tall buckthorn hedge at the back of our yard. A dozen or more blue jays perched near the top of the hedge, in the sun, and began to sing or call. First one would sing, bobbing up and down, then another would take over and another. It was quite remarkable and continued for some time.

A: How wonderful to have seen such a gathering of chattering blue jays. There’s a lot we don’t know about what these brainy birds are communicating in such gatherings, but jays in winter often spend time in foraging flocks. So, it’s possible that a group of neighborhood jays perched together to share information on good places to find fruit, nuts and seeds nearby. Their cousins, the crows, do a similar thing each evening as they gather to roost for the night, so it wouldn’t be such a stretch for jays to do something similar.

Q: I have a nest box for bluebirds on my property that I check weekly and was pleased that the birds had four young inside. I went out of town for a long weekend in early June and returned to find all four young birds dead, a horrible sight. What could have happened?

A: What a sad thing, but not unheard of in the world of cavity-nesting birds. So many other species want to take over bluebird nest boxes and some will kill to claim the space, most notably house sparrows. Wrens can take a terrible toll, too, sometimes killing nestlings in their territory. Another possibility is an infestation of insects that could suck the tiny birds’ blood, but in the photo you sent, it didn’t look as if this had happened. Because house sparrows spend most of their time near our houses and because they can be vicious in trying to claim a nest box, I’d point the finger at that species.

Note to readers: Last month a reader who’d moved to a third-floor condo wondered whether hummingbirds would visit a feeder on her balcony, and I answered that it would be worth a try. Two readers wrote to share their success with “high-rise” feeders: Dot Landis, who lives in St. Paul, notes that she lives on the fifth floor of her building and has had hummingbirds visiting a cuphea plant on her balcony for five years. And Jim Kronlokken of Eden Prairie has a nectar feeder at his third-floor apartment and has had hummingbird visitors for five years, as well. Let’s hope this inspires others to try upper-story hummingbird feeding.

St. Paul resident Val Cunningham, who volunteers with bird organizations and writes about nature for local, regional and national newspapers and magazines, can be reached at valwrites@comcast.net.