Expert: Julia Booth - 6/23/2008

Question
We have a phoebe, I think, who had built a nest on our fron porch column. We have had a nest there before in previous years. She is plain with a dark head, back is either gray or dark brown and belly is lighter, almost white. We live in north Atlanta in a deciduous woods areavery near a creek. This bird does not seem to visit our birdfeeder with the others. The nest contains three little white eggs and one larger pale blue with brown speckles. What's going on? Thanks!

Answer
Well first of all, a Phoebe is a Flycatcher. You shouldn't feel insulted that it's not visiting your feeders. It catches it's food by flying back and forth and trapping small insects in it's mouth. It often does this over water, where there are likely to me more such bugs to consume -like gnats, mayflies and mosquitos.

Your bird sounds like Black Phoebe -it's the only dark colored Phoebe in the Flycatcher family.

As far as the nest, it sounds like the work of a Cowbird. They lay their eggs in other bird's nests and then allows the other bird (of varying species) to incubate and fledge the offspring for her.

Here's a good website that explains this behavior: http://www.sialis.org/cowbirds.htm