Quote:
Originally Posted by rainbow
Great job, Chico. 
I did the same thing last year with a baby cowbird but the parents pushed it out of the nest and I found it the next morning. :sad:  Someone told me it was because they didn't like the human smell from me picking it up.  How the heck was I supposed to get it back in the nest then.  |
If the parents pushed a baby cowbird out of the nest then it wasn't because of your scent, rainbow. Cowbirds are nest parasites--they lay their eggs in other birds' nests. The cowbird eggs usually hatch first and the baby cowbirds push the host's true eggs (or hatchlings) out of the nest so that the cowbirds get more parental attention. If the parents were pushing a cowbird out of the nest, they were just protecting their own chicks, not reacting to your scent.
So definitely
not your fault!
ACO22 is right--most birds have a terrible sense of smell, except birds like turkey vultures, which can smell carrion miles away (which, in my mind, is
also a "terrible" sense of smell...but in a different way
). Human scent on a chick won't put the parents off at all--but human scent or disturbance around the nest can sometimes attract predators...
