No I don’t mean Cuckoos

I’ve just heard of an account of blackbirds feeding robin nestlings

Two blackbirds built a nest near to a robins nest.  The robins nest was a nest box and it had a front opening.

There were 4 eggs in the robins nest and all hatched.  The robins were fed by their parents and all was well.

One morning the cock blackbird was seen carrying insects in its beak – the blackbird flew to the robins nest.  Clinging to the robins’ nest box  the blackbird fed the insects to the young robins.

Amazing.  This happened more than once. In fact it was seen that the robins had left the nest. The robin chicks were fed by the blackbird.

At night time the blackbird flew and clung to the nest box opening.  This would have been to shelter the young robins.

The young robins did fledge and the blackbird was seen feeding them for a day or two.  I don’t know if the young robins did survive.

The blackbird eggs then hatched and the blackbirds went on to rear their own brood

The person who witnessed this is so lucky to have seen this happening in front of them in their  garden.

So as well as bird eating bird – birds do care for other birds as well.