In my last entry I talked about the visitor on Sunday's birdwalk who saw a warbler feeding a much larger chick that I felt sure was a probably a Brown-headed Cowbird. Then yesterday morning I received a call at the information desk that one of the hosts at the North Campground here at Bryce Canyon was trying to reach me. The host had been along on Sunday's walk where I'd told the group about the cowbird's evil ways as nest parasites and so she knew about the behavior. I contacted her on the park's radio system and it turned out that she had the same thing happening near where her RV was parked. When I returned home following work one of the hosts at Sunset Campground (where I am staying) announced that while she was out doing the rounds one of the campers pointed out another "little tiny bird" feeding a larger bird (as it turned out the host from Sunset happened to be visiting the host from North at the time of the previous sighting and, while a non-birder herself, was now also familiar with the behavior).

But wait! There's more to the story I've yet to tell:

As I was returning from lunch just a few hours earlier I bumped into the chief fire protection ranger who said he'd overheard the conversation I had with the North Campground host. He told me that he had a Dark-eyed Junco in his yard that was feeding a cowbird chick and invited me to drop by for a look. Though pressed for time because I had to take Roxie in for shots, I went over this morning to check it out. The cowbird chick (at left in the image above) acted just like any other fledgling, fluttering its wings and begging, while the much smaller junco was only happy to oblige. It would certainly be nice if the junco was clearly identifiable in the photo, however I plan to look for them again tomorrow morning. I'm not getting my hopes up much; the cowbird was flying strongly and I doubt it will be hanging around its "parent" much longer.