Date: 06/23/2015

Number: 1

While observing a male and a female Robin feeding two babies I noticed that the adult would perch at the nest after feeding a baby waiting for the baby to lift up their tail and expel a fecal sack which the adult will then grab with their beak and swallow the sack. The baby responded within a few seconds with a sack.

On one occasion the other adult was waiting after feeding one of the babies but the baby did not respond with a sack. The adult repeatedly gestured by pointing vertically down with it’s beak in a tapping motion (2 taps). Usually the baby would respond with a sack. However when the baby did not respond the tapping motion became more exaggerated in that the tapping went down and then back under it’s legs pointing back to it’s tail. This continued for about 10 gestures without a response. Was this adult trying to communicate to the baby that it wanted a sack by pointing to its own tail. I noticed that at times the adult would not do a tapping down motion but would wait and/or lean in over the baby. The nest is built on the downspout of a house where the drain meets the brick so the nest has a sort of back to it.

The adult gave up and flew away. The other adult arrived with a worm. Fed one of the babies and was immediately rewarded with a sack from the baby.

wood river, IL

Latitude: 38.9 Longitude: -90.1

Observed by: robert
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