UKC

I have a blackbird nest in some wisteria just outside my office window. I have been transfixed with the comings and goings of the mother and father BBs with vast amounts of food to feed the three chicks.

The last couple of days though have been very odd. My resident robin has decided to chip in as well.

Pictures attached, not great but you can see one with the mother and the others with the robin which had taken some mealworms I had just put out.

Wow! I’d never heard of this, so a quick research:

https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/robin/n...

Interesting.  Highly developed seems the wrong term though.  More development would stop them wasting their resources on another species.  Perhaps there is some indirect benefit ?

To put it the other way round.
If they do this because they are highly developed.  Then there must be a benefit to them.

cool observation. i have a few blackbird in wisteria stories- few of them end well (cats),  but here's some interesting behaviour that appears to be infanticide (6 eggs- could be an example of conspecific brood parasitism rejection or just not enough food around to support them all?)

youtube.com/watch?v=7XkB9SPlKbk&

It's literally queuing up now.

maybe its nest was massacred by cat and still has feeding instinct?

I would guess it’s the expectation of getting food one way or other in return. I’ve seen robins following blackbirds who toss leaves, debris, soil, etc looking for food, and the robins benefit from some uncovered food left as well.

Also, a bit like them befriending us in the expectation of getting food. Last year I had a robin once it got used to me started “demanding” food by singing and making it’s presence known when it saw me in the garden. It would also follow me about when I was planting, weeding, etc, and happily be about my feet helping itself to worms, etc at the same time.

I get your point, was struggling to articulate my own theory, so searched this:

https://www.bto.org/our-science/projects/gbw/gardens-wildlife/garden-birds/...

Basically, an unwanted consequence of a normally beneficial behaviour. 

Open your mouth.  See if it gives you a millipede.

I can't think of anything else.  But these things can be complicated.

Social bonding with other species is a possibility.  Birds rely on each others alarm calls.

We've had co-feeding (on demand made to us) of youngsters from 2 blackbird families this year, plus a thrush who is a fast and stealthy "smash and grab" interloper so fast he takes food from under the beaks of both adult and young blaackbirds.  What I find interesting is the tolerance to the young exhibited by parent blackbirds and even polite cooperation when we scatter the food to them.  Outside this context the males do embarassedly polite ejection of trespassers and the remaining female of course believes in maximum storm force toe scare others away if she wants something.

Last week I found the thrush hopping into the kitchen and when I stood up instead of panic flight everywhere he flew on to the work top and turned round and looked at me expectantly as if it was the most natural thing in the world for him to be asking for food indoors.

It satiates a very strong instinct to feed young birds? I don't think there is any quid pro quo expected; it is merely a compulsion.

I think one species feeding an another is pretty unusual but not unknown.  I think the parential avian instinct to put food into a wide gaping mouth causes one species to sometimes feed another pressumably  if the bird doing the feeding has young or has recently had young so the feeding instinct is still strong.

Last week we had a family of young blackbirds on our lawn.  A  starling was  feeding near-by and one of the blackbird fledglings followed the starling around the garden gaping/begging for food.  Its persistence worked too.  The starling fed it on two or three different occasions.
 

It is the first time I've ever seen this happen.

Because it is so obvious to attribute it to a mistake due to their instincts.  I wonder if we are overlooking something more complex that might be involved as well ?   The number of reports suggest this difficult to spot behavior is quite frequent.  Nature does not usually make the same mistake as frequently.

I think instinct in birds is sometimes overhyped.   Yes there are lots of strong instincts but traditionally bird brain has been a way of discounting avian intelligence.  Thankfully this seems to be under correction - I looked into this after starting to watch and interact with garden birds over a number of years and their behaviour is very complex with lots of nuances.  You only realize this after getting to know individuals closely.  There are articles out there that are now suggesting that despite being small bird brains are wired up to work very quickly and with many more interconnections than were previously thought.  After all birds have a visual refresh rate that is several times faster than ours and a small brain has not evolved because of reduced need for thought but more as an answer to the necessity of light weight for flight and agility.  I'm pretty certain they rank far from the bottom on the scale of sentience.

I agree.  They function so differently to us that we are unable to decode their motivations.

yes, i think we may underestimate the importance of interspecies symbiosis- intentional or not..

eg this sort of thing i just looked up..

https://academic.oup.com/beheco/article/26/1/55/2261399

saw a fledgling (possibly) starling the other day that remained after others had flown off. as it returned to flock i noticed a smaller bird (possibly a robin) following its flightpath exactly- making use of superior foraging ability of a crowd or was it hoping to get fed by its parent or maybe it was the parent?

Or: hiding amongst a bigger flock incase Mr Sparrowhawk bobs along (and would more likely grab a daft young starling than a clever robin).  

possibly- i've noticed kestrels nearby before- and cats (near a farm)- now that's a species that would encourage interspecies cooperation..