Henrys Lake Fishing and Eastern Kingbirds

I fished with Jim and Jeff again on Henrys Lake Friday, and it was not as good as it was on Wednesday, but we still caught a lot of fish, but no big ones.

On the way home, I decided to check out an Eastern Kingbird nest I located a couple of weeks ago. I set up my blind and the birds put on a show for me.

The four newly hatched chicks were very hungry and the parents were busy catching insects to stuff in the hungry babes.

A parent captures a large dragonfly and returns to the nest of four hungry mouths.

After waiting a while, the parent stuffs the large insect into the mouth of a hungry chick. If you look closely you can see the wing of the dragonfly to the right of the parent.

The parent then watches over the chicks while its partner hunts and harvests flying insects.

The other parent returns with its mouth stuffed full of insects to feed the hungry babes.

Only one hungry mouth left to fill after two trips for each parent to the nest to feed the chicks.

After feeding the last baby Eastern Kingbird, the parent apparently starts singing a lullaby as all the babes appear to be asleep. After they are all settled down, both parents catch more flying insects and roost on a nearby willow to feed themselves.

It didn't take very long before all four chicks are howling for more food.

A parent begins picking flying insects out of the air next to the nest as the babies continue to yell for food.

More food for two of the hungry mouths while the other two continue to yell for food.

After more feedings, one of the parents sits about the squalking mass of reproduced chicks. I can only imagin the thoughts running through the parents mind. "Sex isn't all it is cracked up to be!!!!" "Once a parent - always a parent." "Slavery was outlawed by the 13th Amendment."

What a show I had while I watched the family of birds. On the other side of the pond, a pair of Olive-sided Flycatchers were doing the same thing.