12 replies to this topic

[DaveT]

A couple of days ago I posted what I thought was a weird bird photo to Whatbird and was told the bird was "anting". I had never seen or heard of that before so looked it up.

Now I've got something else that is weird. I have a Dark-eyed Junco nest in my yard and took this 15 second video today of the babies being fed. Towards the end, the baby closest to the camera sticks its pink butt up in the air, and it looks like it blows up a white balloon that the parent carries away. I assume its bird poop, but why isn't it runny? It literally blows up with air (almost looks like an egg at the end) and gets carried away in one piece. I have that happening in more than one video. Now I normally don't ask questions about poop, but what is going on here?
https://picasaweb.go...feat=directlink

If you want to see the other photos/videos in the album (going back to the egg state), you can probably link from the above, or use this:
https://picasaweb.go...feat=directlink
I'll keep updating until the babies fly away.

Thanks.

[dklucius]

they are called fecal sacks and many baby birds do poop out a sack and the parents carry them off

[fisherman1313]

DKLucious is correct, but I'll expand a little on his explanation. Many young birds that are naked, blind and defenseless at hatching (called altricial young) produce a fecal sack that does look like a small, white balloon. The parents carry it away from the nest (or sometimes eat it) to keep the nest clean, reduce parisites and make the nest less obvious to predators.

[cwj2323]

Great video. I'll have to show it to the children. That was neat how the dad stayed there like it was waiting for the poop to arrive.

[fisherman1313]

If humans did something like this we'd have gone extinct by now, nobody'd ever have kids!

[threeofhardts]

If humans did something like this we'd have gone extinct by now, nobody'd ever have kids!

Yep! I love my kid but I'm not gonna carry his poop off into the woods and I'm certainly not gonna eat it!

[cwj2323]

Brown-headed cowbirds will remove and eat the fecal sacs from the nests they lay their eggs in. Our boys like knowing interesting poop facts and I found that on wikipedia's page for fecal sacs. Even though I don't care for the cowbirds, its nice knowing they do one beneficial thing for their babies.

[Aveschapines]

If humans did something like this we'd have gone extinct by now, nobody'd ever have kids!

Actually, that sounds much easier than the human system; Imagine if the baby pooped out a neatly packaged diaperful instead of the parents having to convert it to that tossable form!

[fisherman1313]

Actually, that sounds much easier than the human system; Imagine if the baby pooped out a neatly packaged diaperful instead of the parents having to convert it to that tossable form!

It's not so much the action I was referring to but the method.

[Aveschapines]

It's not so much the action I was referring to but the method.

:-)

[DaveT]

I had always wanted to be reincarnated as a bird. Now I'm not so sure. Plus I think I could deal with the bird seed, but would get sick of worms and bugs after a couple days

[fisherman1313]

I had always wanted to be reincarnated as a bird. Now I'm not so sure. Plus I think I could deal with the bird seed, but would get sick of worms and bugs after a couple days

Well, that's only if you came back as a bird with the mind of a human.

[spyonabird]

It's amazing what you see then you start watching birds more in depth. Here is a video from inside my bluebird house that shows the male removing a fecal sac. I shot this in June of this year.