While doing my morning reading from my easy chair Wednesday, I looked up to see a pair of house sparrows perched on a plant hanger propped against one of our dining room windows.
One bird was feeding the other, zipping back and forth to the nearby tube feeder while the other stayed put. The birds happened to be perched near an orchid that is blooming on the window sill.
I watched this feeding ritual for several minutes, figuring that a male was feeding a female mate or potential mate. I also thought I ought to fetch my camera from the back room and get a photo framing the birds under the orchid blossoms.
I was able to take several shots, then moved to get a different vantage point. But the birds flew off. Having to get ready for work, I put the camera aside and decided to hold off on getting the images into my computer.
That I did this morning, and I was surprised to find that what I had observed was not a male feeding a female but a female feeding a young bird. The size differential is clear in the photo topping this post, and the larger bird on the right is female.
I hadn’t noticed those details when looking at and photographing them.
Their behavior did lead me to look up birds feeding birds on Google. I found several references to what’s called allofeeding, and this description on Wikipedia seemed to sum things up well.
The Jersey Birder 