Birds | October 27, 2022 9:41 AM | hangbony
Three poor baby birds being attacked.
It is amazing that, after taking a serious beating from the large bird, the chicks are still alive and survived. The #3 chick was the most aggressive until she was hit hard in the head several times and just fell over. The larger chick seemed to be chicken and wasn’t very aggressive.
It looks like the chicks had lost one of their parents (killed by accident or by predators) and the parent left could do nothing against the other nesting couple. This is ghastly and fundamentally cruel. It’s hard to watch… My heart breaks The predatory bird is taking nesting materials for his mate below. The chicks were dinner, but they were also in the way.
I have never seen that behavior in any animal or bird. Killing solely for the purpose of nesting material.Others may exist; I haven’t seen them.I know cuckoo birds lay their eggs in other birds’ nests, but the cuckoo hatchling does the killing. I think the baby birds were low on energy and the attacking bird knew that. After awhile, the babies got tired and couldn’t defend themselves.