Parent blue jay with fledgling, Schenley Park, 31 May 2026 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

2 June 2026

In the midst of Peregrine Fledge Watch Season this blog has been All Peregrines All The Time but I’ll take a break to tell you about our outing on 31 May.

Fourteen people came out last Sunday for a walk in Schenley Park. Here are 10 of us at journey’s end.

Schenley Park outing, 31 May 2026 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

Highlights were:

• A fledgling blue jay was perched low within sight of the sidewalk. He looked so young with a yellow gape and almost no tail. We were glad to see a parent feed and check on him frequently (photo at top).

Blue jay fledgling, Schenley Park, 31 May 2026 (photo by Charity Kheshgi)

• A large flock of about 30 northern rough-winged swallows and 10 swifts flew just over our heads as they ate flying insects at Panther Hollow Lake. When the sun heated the air the bugs rose higher and so did the swallows. Sometimes a swallow landed on the wire between the lightpoles.

Northern rough-winged swallow, Schenley Park, 31 May 2026 (photo by Jeff Cieslak)

• We saw a busy pair of eastern phoebes gathering food and soon found out why. They were feeding a voracious brown-headed cowbird fledgling. In the lefthand photo below, the fledgling looks larger than its foster parent. In the righthand photo you can tell it’s not a phoebe baby.

Brown-headed cowbird fledgling begging from its eastern phoebe foster parent, Schenley Park, 31 May 2026 (photos by Charity Kheshgi and Jeff Cieslak)

Nearby a female cowbird, perhaps the birth mother, watched the fledgling. As soon as he is “weaned” from his foster parents he will figure out he’s a cowbird when he hears his mother (or another female cowbird) make the rattle call.

Female brown-headed cowbird watching an eastern phobe feeding a cowbird fledgling, Schenley, 31 May 2026 (photo by Jeff Cieslak)

• A northern house wren sang on a lightpole, then went inside the light itself to a potential nest site (his “house”). When he exited the hole Jeff Cieslak captured him in flight.

Northern house wren exits from his nest hole, Schenley, 31 May 2026 (photo by Jeff Cieslak)

In all we saw 22 species. Our checklist is here https://ebird.org/checklist/S350315353 and listed below.