As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Friday, 20 March 2015

The bird that nurtured its mortal enemy


Presented by
Ben Aviss

Raising young is a stressful, disorientating time for any parent but one bird appears to have been so confused it was seen attempting to brood the chicks in a nearby nest of a hobby falcon – one of its known predators.

Filmmakers for BBC Two series Autumnwatch recorded a female woodpigeon repeatedly trying to brood hobby hatchlings but being pushed off the nest by the chicks’ parent.

The incredible sequence was filmed using a remote camera set up in a farm in Gloucestershire.

“I suspect the bird just became a bit confused,” said Dave Leech, senior research ecologist at the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO).

“It may have lost a brood of its own nearby and, still full of hormones associated with that stage of the nesting cycle, decided to brood the nearest available alternative.”

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