{"id":29168,"date":"2020-07-09T07:29:39","date_gmt":"2020-07-09T14:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=29168"},"modified":"2020-07-09T07:29:39","modified_gmt":"2020-07-09T14:29:39","slug":"foster-parent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=29168","title":{"rendered":"Foster parent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A brood parasite is something that one reads about, but does not actually expect to see.<\/p>\n<p>The story begins with the Brown-headed Cowbird, a warm-season species that lays its eggs in the nests of other birds and so outsources its chick-raising obligations. As such, the cowbird is a brood parasite, which just means that it cons others into becoming foster parents for its chicks.<\/p>\n<p>An initially unidentified fledged chick was begging as it sat deep among the branches of a tree.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-29170\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/cowbird200708cs.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But when a (tiny) Yellow Warbler responded by feeding it, the identity of the (large) chick was revealed as a Brown-headed Cowbird.\u00a0\u00a0<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-29169\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/cowbird200708as.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>With a constant demand, the cowbird kept its foster parent busy searching for food to satisfy it.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-29171\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/cowbird200708bs.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; A brood parasite is something that one reads about, but does not actually expect to see. The story begins with the Brown-headed Cowbird, a warm-season species that lays its eggs in the nests of other birds and so outsources &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=29168\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29168"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29182,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29168\/revisions\/29182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}