Young Brown-headed Cowbirds

Almost 3:00 pm and there are only 8 new photos on My Contacts page. Nothing new in 5 or 6 hours, which is most unusual. Wonder if there is a problem with Flickr, or if people just aren't posting.

Update on my daughter, 24 August 2015: she is still waiting to find out if she will need surgery. Still feeling a lot better, but no doubt getting more and more bored by the minute : ) She knows quite a few of the staff at the hospital, and they pop in to see her, or she drags her IV stand to go and see them, which all helps.

I'm not 100% sure that my ID is correct. If anyone sees that I'm wrong, please do let me know - thanks!

On 6 July 2015, the weather forecast looked good for the High River area, SE of Calgary. However, when I got there, the sky was overcast, the distant Rocky Mountains had completely disappeared, and the light was not good for taking photos. For some reason, all the birds, including the Ibis near the blind at Frank Lake, were unusually active, which didn't help! Except for these two young Brown-headed Cowbirds. They were standing on one of the rocks that line the edges of the rough road between the gate and the blind, and stayed long enough for me to get a couple of shots.

The Brown-headed Cowbird is a brood parasitic icterid, which means that they lay their eggs in the nests of other bird species.

""'Brood parasitic' means that it lays its eggs in the nests of other small passerines (perching birds), particularly those that build cup-like nests. The Brown-headed Cowbird eggs have been documented in nests of at least 220 host species, including hummingbirds and raptors. The young cowbird is fed by the host parents at the expense of their own young. Brown-headed Cowbird females can lay 36 eggs in a season. More than 140 different species of birds are known to have raised young cowbirds."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown-headed_Cowbird

There were three things that I thought I would try and photograph - yellow Canola fields, any kind of bird sitting on a fence post with Canola behind it, and an Eared Grebe with young ones on her back. Managed the first two, but there was just the one Grebe near the blind but too far to photograph when she had a single baby on her back. Luckily, a little Savannah Sparrow decided to land on a fence post at the edge of the road. I always love the way their yellow "eyebrows" match the colour of the Canola bokeh. I was also lucky to find several close White-faced Ibis at a slough NE of Frank Lake. So, just a short trip, but an enjoyable one.